Exaggerations of Necessary and Virtuous Functions
by Brachylagus-fandom
Summary: Harry was dropped off at St. Sebastian's orphanage, and Laura's parent's aren't quite mundane.
1. The Beginning of Peace

**This fic starts off really H.I.V.E.-heavy before evening out to a more or less equal mix of both series. It will also feature a pair of more or less OCs (Laura's parents) fairly heavily. This fic is set in the vaguely near future timeline of the H.I.V.E. series, with Higher Institute of Education starting shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday.**

 **The title is based on the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote "Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function." Most (if not all) the chapter titles will be based off quotes as well; I'll put the quotes at the beginning of the chapter with the corresponding title. So, without further ado...**

Chapter 1: The Beginning of Peace (of the Interlude During War)

"I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war." - Georges Clemenceau

* * *

St. Sebastian's orphanage was an old building that may have once been grand but had since fallen into disrepair. One of the front windows was boarded up after someone had thrown a rock through it; the patterning on the brick walls was obscured by grime; the white lintels were a dingy gray; and the surrounding neighborhood, which had once been at least law-abiding, was a mix of derelict buildings and estate housing. In short, it was the last place one would expect Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number Four, Privet Drive, to visit willingly, much less in the dead of night and with an infant in their car.

 _Not that anyone proper is ever going to know about this,_ Petunia thought as she watched Vernon approach the orphanage. They had claimed to be taking a long and long-deserved date night, and while dinner without Dudley had been nice, their real objective was in the seat to Petunia's left, where young Harry Potter lay tightly wrapped in blankets. A little bit of Benadryl in his afternoon bottle had put her nephew _(not that anyone proper is going to know about_ that _or Lily, either)_ fast asleep, and he would stay that way until the Dursleys were long gone; they hadn't risked losing their one and only attempt to be rid of her sister's son on something as small as the child waking up.

After checking to make sure that no one was watching, Petunia quickly set the bundle on the orphanage doorstep and just as quickly rushed back to the car. Vernon accelerated as soon as her door closed, and they were out of the neighborhood within five minutes.

On the doorstep, Harry continued to sleep even as chill seeped through his (enchanted with warming charms) blankets. Even as his lips started to take on a bluish tinge after four hours, he did not wake; sleeping charms were another thing Dorcas Meadowes, enchanter extraordinaire, added to the blankets she and Marlene gifted Lily. He would sleep until Mrs. McReedy checked the porch at five-thirty the next morning and noticed that someone had left a baby there overnight. She would shake her head and take him in to warm up; at least whoever dropped off Otto had had the decency to knock, and they hadn't come at the beginning of November.

...

Dark had long since fallen when Andromeda heard a knock on the door. "I'll get it," she said, grabbing her wand from the table. Ted's magic was much more defensive than hers; if it was a Death Eater attack, he would be better used to get Nymphadora and get out than to face them head on. As she walked down the front hall, Andromeda wondered who it could be; Nymphadora had been suspiciously well-behaved recently, so it couldn't be a neighbor complaining about her behavior, and no one magical knew about the house's location except…

Mary Mitchell, eyes red from crying, was standing on her doorstep. Andromeda quickly ushered her in. "It's Mary," she called to Ted before turning to Mary. "What happened? Is Andrew alright?" Mary nodded.

"He's fine. He went to talk to his relatives, and since they don't know we're married…" Mary trailed off. "Laura's sleeping though the night now, and I had to get out of the apartment. Lily's dead," she said. "They're saying Voldemort is, too, but there were only two shrouds when I checked. Harry's safe… somewhere… probably, but James and Lily are dead. They're saying Sirius betrayed them." Mary shrugged off her coat and started to pace.

"He wouldn't," Andromeda said.

"Are you sure?" Mary asked. "I mean, it's subtler than he normally is, but remember the werewolf incident?" Andromeda nodded; it had been after her time (after Mary's, for that matter), but word traveled fast in the wizarding world. "He can be downright nasty when he wants to be."

"Not Death Eater nasty." Sirius could be crazy sometimes, sure - it was in the Black blood - but he wasn't the type to set houses on fire with families still inside or to _Crucio_ children into catatonia. Andromeda was sure of it. "He refused admission when he was sixteen and nearly died over it."

"I know, Lily called me to help when he got to James' place, but…" Mary shrugged. "He wouldn't be the first pureblood I trusted to betray me. I've spent the last seven years at _war,_ Andy, and I'm not sure I trust anyone anymore, even people on our side. Especially people on our side."

"We'll find out the truth soon enough." Andromeda sighed; the fight was supposedly over, but the war was not over yet. "They'll probably want to do the trial as soon as possible to maximize feeling against Death Eaters." Mary sat down at the kitchen table with her and Ted.

"What are we going to do now?" Mary asked. "Half the wizarding world had been trying to kill the other half for decades. Where can we go from here?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, let's just hope we've really reached the end of the fighting." _For now,_ Andromeda thought but didn't say. Mary nodded. "I'm thinking about going back to act as legal counsel; the wizarding system isn't too different from the muggle one, and it's what I was raised under."

"I'm staying out of it," Ted said. "Andy can do what she wants, and I'm willing to have a Floo connection again, but I like my job, and no one's going to kill me over it."

"I'm too scared to even consider a Floo," Mary said. "Macmillan is thinking of expanding his business to potions, and he wants me as a researcher. Not that he knows it's me yet - he got some of my potions from Macavoy - but he was in our year; I'm sure he suspects. It'll be nice to create things while not under dire circumstances for a change."

"I can toast to that." Ted flicked his wand, and three glasses flew in from the kitchen. "To calmer circumstances."

"To new beginnings," Mary said.

"To the Boy who Lived," Andromeda said.

"And to the Parents who Died," Mary said. "May they know peace in death, for they knew only war in life."

"To their memories," Andromeda began the traditional wizard's funeral toast.

"To their succesors," Ted said, "and to the future."

"To life!" The three drank and chatted; the future was uncertain, but at least there was a future for the first time in years.

...

Otto looked at the toddler suspiciously. Mrs. McReedy had left to "do errands", as she did every Monday afternoon, and she had left him alone with St. Sebastian's newest arrival. Harry, oblivious to Otto's displeasure at being made to look after him, giggled, looked at the pile of blocks Otto had dumped in front of him so he could read _The Prince_ in peace, and -

A few minutes later, Otto woke up on the floor with a screaming migraine and with a very startled Harry looking at him. He tried to sit up and regretted it as the room started to spin rapidly around him. A room whose walls had definitely been a dingy gray a minute ago but were now bright green.

That might be useful in the future. He'd see what else Harry could do… once the headache receded; he would think up a plan when it stopped hurting to _think_.

* * *

 **Like it? Hate it? Have no clue what's going on? Review and let me know! This fic will be updating every other Saturday, and I'm planning on posting a different fic (39 Clues sort-of-fixit, if anyone's interested) on the Saturdays this fic doesn't update.**


	2. Virtue is Ice-Cold

Chapter 2: Virtue is Ice-Cold (and You Have to Keep Your Feet Warm)

"Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm." - _Rameau's Nephew_ , Denis Diderot

* * *

 _Nine Years Later_

Even around St. Sebastian's orphanage, it was obvious that Christmas was fast approaching. The few local stores had set up baubles, tinsel, and (in the case of Mrs. Smith's clothes shop) a light-up Christmas tree in their windows, and Mrs. McReedy had half-heartedly hung some tinsel along the doorframes and railings of the orphanage. However, the most festive place in the neighborhood was the toy shop located on the edge of where the neighborhood turned "respectable". Its windows were an explosion of tinsel and fairy lights, and the shelves inside were piled high with toys so amazing and amazingly expensive that the orphans at St. Sebastian's could never hope of receiving one; the orphanage's budget was so tight that one toy per child was generally a stretch.

Until now, Otto thought as he and Harry made their way towards the legos and Penny and Tom covered the soft toys and Robin and Robert, a pair of burly fifteen-year-old twins, grabbed radio controlled cars and a bike. The shop had closed hours ago, but this particular shop still had a manual lock on its back door, and Harry had long since figured out how to open those without a key. Better yet, the application of that particular trick was focused enough that Otto only got a hint of dizziness or a twinge of pain in no way comparable to the migraines he got from Harry's larger-scale feats. (They still weren't sure how or why Harry's magic, for lack of a better word, caused Otto's migraines, but they also weren't sure how or why Harry had magic, just that it was very useful in times like these.) Dark had long since fallen outside, and it was too risky for them to turn on the lights to search, but assorted orphans had cased the shop repeatedly over the past week, and they had developed a map of what they wanted to grab and a path to get it most efficiently that only required a few small flashlights to complete.

All in all, it took them maybe twenty minutes from Harry holding his hand over the back door's lock to the orphans, laden with gifts, walking out the back door; splitting the assorted gifts between six people had ensured that they needed no second trip. Hary held his hand over the lock again for a slightly longer period of time; relocking doors was harder than unlocking them. At six a.m. the next morning - roughly six hours after they loaded the toys into Mrs. McReedy's car and drove home - a new shipment of toys would arrive, and the one or two of each toy they had stolen would be lost in the inventory. All that would really change would be that Christmas this year would be much, much happier than Mrs. McReedy had previously planned.

As snow started to fall, Harry grinned. He loved this time of year.

...

Dr. Maximilian Nero hated this time of year. He was five months away from the beginning of a new year at H.I.V.E., five months away from his sixth years going off to destroy the world in style - not that he would be particularly sad to see them go, especially the demonic duo of Kate King and Sofia Ivanova - and a new class of first years beginning to learn the delicate art of proper supervillainy, and that meant he was in the middle of the busiest month of the school year. The graduation exam had to be planned, conducted, and supervised; covers and forged papers for graduates had to be created; and the new class had to be selected and collected without anyone outside the know noticing. It was at that last task that Nero was working even as curfew began and the hall lights went off.

The legacies - children of G.L.O.V.E. employees and H.I.V.E. alumni - were more or less the same as usual. Assessments of villainous potential were still being carried out, but the results so far were mostly promising. The Argentblum boy displayed not only his mother's sharp mind for financial magic - he remembered Ingrid Blunt's time as part of the first class of the Political & Financial stream fondly - but also an impressive degree of self-direction and decisiveness (even if said self-direction was currently directed primarily at food). The Fanchu boy was a similar case; his physical prowess was perfect for the Henchman stream, but he displayed far more critical thought than most of the Henchman exhibited. Both of them would do well in the Alpha stream, which would give them a more balanced training than P&F or Henchman. (He really needed to expand the Henchman curriculum for the Wing Fanchus and Kate Kings of the world; some degree of tact and situational awareness would also up their employment numbers. Maybe he should talk to Raven about teaching some classes? She might enjoy tormenting students more frequently, and two years of looming classes felt excessive.) He wasn't sure who had nominated Nigel Darkdoom - he remembered Maria's opinion on her (now late) husband's less than legal activities - but he showed the beginnings of his father's megalomaniacal and destructive tendencies; he would do well in the Alpha stream, too. Madeleine Matthews was a resounding disappointment - a decent amount of basic technical skill, but no ambition at all - and he would have to field angry calls from her father soon, but he had stared Matthew Matthews, who had plenty of ambition but limited forward planning abilities, before and was not afraid to do so again.

The sponsored candidates were a bit trickier than normal. It seemed the large, shadowy group of high-ranking G.L.O.V.E. members who had the funds and inclination to sponsor students had wanted to see some exciting retrieval failures this year; the candidates were far more high risk than normal. One of them even had a family! It was specifically listed in the Application to Sponsor form that the candidate had to have no familial ties so that fewer people would notice their disappearance. Noticed disappearances meant investigations, and investigations meant the need to forge letters and surveillance camera footage to imply the missing had run away. Sure, he could use Brand's upcoming arrest - for _hacking into a missile detection system to spy on classmates who were mean to her,_ no less, which managed to hit both the level of self-direction Nero hoped for and the level of immaturity Nero despised - to... _convince_ (blackmail was such a nasty word) her parents into consenting to send her to H.I.V.E., but it was risky. A very valuable risk to take - Mr. Greene was offering twice the usual tuition for her first year - but not necessarily a risk Nero wanted to take, especially since there was something… _off_ about Mary and Andrew Brand. Both of them had huge gaps in their records - Mary between the ages of eleven and nineteen, when she resurfaced with a stellar academic record from a school that HIVEmind couldn't find, and Andrew from birth until the age of 22 - and and while they wouldn't be the first parents with very carefully controlled records, they were a research pharmacist and accountant in Scotland, not an assassin banned from sixteen countries and a high-level vigilante. (So, _so_ grateful Ivanova was graduating this year.) It didn't _make sense_ for the Brands' records to be missing.

Compared to her, Malpense and his partners in crime would be easy to defeat, and he had needed to reserve Natalya for that particular collection; they had slipped incredibly tight police nets before, and the dark-haired one who was always two feet to Malpense's left looked like a biter.

...

"Otto?" Otto sighed and rolled over; it was still dark outside, but neither he nor Harry had been able to get back to sleep after the evening's heist.

"Yes, Harry?" He could see the frame of Harry's glasses glint on the moonlight.

"Do you ever get the feeling that someone's watching us?"

"You mean like the nutter in the cloak last month?" It perhaps hadn't been quite fair for Robin, who was a good foot taller than the stooped me, to hip-check him as they attempted to get parts for Otto's latest machine (Harry had broken Otto's backup computer again), but he had been about to blow their cover by talking loudly about "the Boy-Who-Lived" and being "honored, so incredibly honored, to thank you for your sacrifice" (whatever that meant).

"No, someone more subtle. I could feel them tonight." Otto sighed; "feeling" people nearby, particularly those focused on them, was another of Harry's talents that they had worked carefully to develop over the years. Otto wasn't sure if it was actually part of Harry's "magic" (as they had grown to call it) or just a heightened sense of observation, since it didn't tend to bother him like Harry floating objects or changing objects' colors did.

"What did they feel like?"

"Cold," Harry said. "Colder than anyone else I've met, even the gray man who comes to observe us sometimes." That wasn't good, but there was nothing they could do about it, especially since Otto hadn't even caught a glimpse of this supposed watcher.

"We'll deal with them when we deal with them," Otto said before turning over; he needed to get some sleep before morning came.

...

The Brand house was part of a neat row of houses whose only distinguishing factors were the colors of the curtains. Nero double checked the address - Number Six, its curtains royal blue with bronze trim - rapped once on the door, and glanced to check no one had noticed him while he waited. If he was found this close to a US military base, it would not end well for him or anyone else at G.L.O.V.E. After a moment, the door opened.

"Who are you?" Mary Brand asked. She looked a lot like her daughter - they had the same green eyes and thin face and long, nimble fingers - but her hair was dark, and rather than her daughter's self-conscious smile, she was wearing a truly magnificent scowl. "What are you doing here?"

"My name is Dr. Nero, and I'm here to talk about your daughter's future," Nero said. The woman sighed.

"Come in," she said. Nero walked into the sunny kitchen, where Matthew Brand was fussing over a table of numbers. "What has Laura done this time?"

"She hacked into the missile warning system," Nero said, "and you have less than three days until she's arrested." Matthew Brand blinked and set down his pencil.

"Laura did _what_?" he said. "Why?"

"I don't know," Nero said; the "snooping on her bullies" thing probably wouldn't help him at this moment. "I am offering a chance for her to escape. When the authorities come, you will say that Laura has left for summer camp, and the evidence pointing to Laura's involvement will disappear." Nero laid out the pamphlet and acceptance letters H.I.V.E.'s Chief Documents Manager had made. Mary's frown deepened.

"What's the catch?" she asked.

"Laura is being offered a place at my school, the Higher Institute of Villainous Education," Nero said. "You will tell everyone she's gone to a private boarding school for the intellectually gifted." _That lie is close enough to the truth to avoid suspicions._ "If you accept, she will be enrolled there for the next six years. No visits or letters will be allowed."

"And after?" Matthew asked.

"She will be free to contact whoever she wishes," Nero said. "Probably not under her original name, of course, but she will be free to contact you." Matthew nodded.

"If we don't agree, and she gets arrested, she'll end up attending anyways, won't she?" Mary asked. Nero frowned; the thought hadn't occurred to him, but a fake juvenile corrections facility could serve them well in the future for cases like these. He'd have to talk to the Documents Mangement Department about it later.

"Most likely," Nero said as if the thought hadn't just occurred to him. Mary sighed.

"Will she be safe at your school?"

"She will be safer than if she was in prison," Nero said. Mary muttered something that sounded like "a better deal than I got" under her breath and turned to her husband. After a minute, he nodded.

"We accept," Mary said. "Where do I need to sign?" Nero produced the paperwork, and the pair signed it without complaint even if Matthew's eyes widened at the "death or permanent maiming" clause. "Our business is done, Dr. Nero. Get out." Nero did, the fake paraphernalia of "Douglas Computer Science Camp" on the kitchen table and the Intake Consent Form in his hand.

 _That was far too easy_ , Nero thought. _What are those two hiding? Why are they so eager to let Miss Brand come with me? Why are their records so incomplete? What don't I know?_

* * *

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	3. I Don't Know Where I'm Going

**Title is from George Fairman's "I Don't Know Where I'm Going." The last chapter of this section is adapted heavily from chapter five of the Sorcerer's Stone, and this and the next couple of chapters are going to be really Harry Potter heavy.**

Chapter 3: I Don't Know Where I'm Going (But I'm on My Way)

* * *

Otto woke with a pounding headache and a nasty taste at the back of his mouth. Groaning, he lifted his head up, expecting to see a nervous Harry and (hopefully) Robert with some asprin. Instead, he saw an unconscious asian boy strapped into a harness like his and an endless expanse of ocean outside the helicopter window. That was… new.

How had he gotten from the middle of London, having just completed the biggest (well, only, unless you count that local council election, and the gerbil had definitely deserved to win there) political coup of his criminal career, to the middle of the (Atlantic? Pacific? Was there any way to tell?) Ocean? Why was he here? He and Harry (and Robin, who was doing the heavy equipment lifting) hadn't gotten caught; the police had been too stunned by the PM's actions to even notice as they, victory-drunk and giggling madly, left the scene.

As Otto's (apparently not magic-induced, for a change - those stuck around forever) headache receded, Otto started to remember what had happened just before he had been knocked unconscious…

...

After staying just long enough to watch the Prime Minister moon the audience on live national television, Harry, Otto, and Robin slipped out the back of the studio and walked away as casually as possible; it wouldn't do to be caught doing something like this, after all, particularly since Penny and Tom were off doing… something (probably theft-related)… using the scandal-to-be as a small distraction. They wandered through the surrounding neighborhood for the next hour - it would throw anyone tailing them off, and there was an ice cream shop three blocks from their hotel that had the best bint chip (Otto's favorite). Once they reached the hotel, ice cream in hand, they prepared for a night of watching the clip over and over on the news (it had been a slow news week so far, so this would probably dominate for at least a few days) and hopefully catching some sleep before an early morning train ride back to St. Sebastian's.

They were not expecting, however, for a woman dressed in black leather tactical gear perched on the bed with a tranquilizer gun in hand. Harry's reaction was instinctual, as was Robin's; the gun embedded itself in the ceiling as Otto and Harry were dragged out of the room. They almost made it to the fire escape before Otto, his balance already shaky from unanticipated magic exposure, fell as the world went dark around him.

...

Well, that explained how he had gotten here (wherever here was); the woman must have managed to retrieve her gun from the ceiling and shot him with a dart. It did /not/ explain, however, why he was here, what had happened to his friends (had they been relocated elsewhere? left and and wisely afraid to contact the police? killed?), or how he was going to get back home.

He was going to get back home, somehow, or die trying; of that much he was sure. Too many people - Ms. McReedy, Harry, most of the younger orphans and many of the older ones - depended on him for him not to at the very least try to escape. How difficult an escape would be (and how well it could be executed without most of the resources Otto had come to rely on) wouldn't be known until they landed, but Otto had a feeling he already had an ally in the boy strapped into the seat across from him, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Once he realized where he was, the boy looked at Otto suspiciously.

"You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?" the boy asked. Otto shook his head.

"I'm afraid not," Otto said. "I'm Otto Malpense."

"Wing Fanchu."

...

As soon as Harry and Robin limped into St. Sebastian's, Tom raced up to them. "The heist went great, but Penny almost got caught by the guard on the second trip - it would've been useful to have a third person there - but otherwise, it went great!" Tom said. "Wait, where's Otto?" Robin sighed.

"Otto is… gone," Robin said. "We don't know where he was taken, or why, but he's gone. Do we have any ibuprofen? My ribs are killing me."

"It's in the medicine cabinet, as usual," Tom said. "Do we know when he'll be back?"

"No," Harry said, "but I can guarantee he'll try. Did anything else happen while we were away?"

"Oh!" Tom said. "Yeah. A letter came for you. Well, about forty letters, but we think they're all the same. The box of them is on the table." Harry nodded and picked up one letter from the box. It was unusually heavy letter for its size, and the envelope looked as if it was made out of old-fashioned parchment, not normal paper. On the back, written clearly in green ink, was a disturbingly specific address.

/Mr. H. Potter  
Fourth Bedroom to the Left  
Third Floor  
St. Sebastian's Orphanage  
Lewes  
Sussex/

Deciding not to try to figure out how someone knew which bedroom he shared with Otto or why the letter didn't list a street address, Harry opened the envelope. Maybe this would make more sense if he knew what this letter business was about.

/HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY  
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc. Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress/

Now this was getting weird. A school for magic he had never heard of, much less applied to, wanted him to attend? Admittedly, Harry and Otto had long since given up pretending that Harry's "gift" was anything less than supernatural, but an extensive search had turned up no results for anything remotely resembling Harry's powers, let alone an entire school for people like him.

Harry threw down the letter in disgust. This wasn't real. This had to be a prank. Or a sick joke. First he had lost his best friend - his brother in all but blood - and now someone was pulling this? Harry was about to ask Tom who had dropped all the letters off - they had no stamps, so they had to be hand-delivered - when a booming knock came from the front door. Harry and Tom looked at each other and then back at the door as the knock sounded again and cracks appeared in the doorframe. Before they had to figure out if the door would hold against whoever was knocking on (or, quite possibly, driving a small battering ram into) it, Tom walked to the door and opened it.

The man who walked through the door looked like the stereotypical friendly giant straight out of Harry's secondhand fantasy novels: tall - so tall he had to stoop to not hit the orphanage ceiling - and with a bushy mess of hair and beard that his warm smile and shining black eyes somehow showed through. "An' here's Harry!" he said. "Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."

"You knew my parents?" Harry asked. He and Otto (and Penny, who rounded out the "found abandoned without any clue as to who the parents are" trio) had searched through every database they could get their hands on, but all they ever came up with was wasted time and fruitless searches. Could this man have actually known them? "Who are you?"

"True, I haven't introduced myself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts - you'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er - no," Harry said. Hagrid looked shocked.

"Yeh don't know about Hogwarts?" Hagrid asked. "Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"

"All what?"

"All what?" Hagrid's voice rose. "Do you mean ter tell me that you know nothin' abou' - about ANYTHING?"

"I know lots of things," Harry said. "Reading and writing and math and stuff." /And stealing,/ Harry very carefully didn't say; he didn't think Hagrid would like that.

"About /our/ world, I mean." Hagrid waved his hand around vaguely. /"Your/ world. /My/ world. /Yer parents' world."/

"What world am I supposed to know about?" Harry asked. "I don't even know my parents' /names."/ Hagrid just stared at him.

"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," He said. "I mean, they're /famous. You're famous."/ Harry shook his head.

"I was dropped off here ten years with only a blanket and a note with my name," Harry said. "What are you talking about?"

"You don' even know what you are?" Harry shook his head again. "Harry - yer a wizard."

"That… makes a lot of sense, actually," Tom said. "So the school's real?"

"Of course it's real!" Hagrid said. "It's just as real as you and me." Harry had never heard a statement so simultaneously reassuring and terrifying.

...

So this Higher Institute of Villainous Education (which only made Otto wonder if there was a Lower Institute of Villainous Education) was on an island in the middle of the (probably, based on the volcano) Pacific Ocean. That would make escaping tricky. Not trickier than Otto had thought - he'd assumed they would end up in an isolated location /somewhere/ - and by no means inescapable, particularly if he found people with the right skillsets, but harder than Otto would have liked.

Going out the way he and Wing had come in - through helicopters into the volcano, wasn't feasible; the opening to the volcano's mouth was generally closed, and, even if that wasn't a factor, neither he nor Wing knew how to pilot a helicopter. However, a glimpse at the blueprints in Nero's office - laid just a bit too conveniently within reach for Otto's paranoia, but he would take what he could get at this point - showed a submarine bay on the west side of the volcano, and that was a much better option. If he and Wing could acquire a submarine, they would be free within an hour and to land within days.

Obtaining a submarine would be… interesting, especially with the security measures and AI involved, but it was a plan, and Otto had successfully executed crazier plans before.

...

As he, Hagrid, and Penny (who, as far as Mrs. McReedy knew, was his escort on this trip) walked down the wide street filled with shops advertising everything from dragon's liver to perfect models of the solar system for astrologers, Harry struggled not to gawk. He and Otto had visited this shopping center before - the shop right next to the Leaky Cauldron sold secondhand books incredibly cheaply, and there was an electronics store a few doors down - but neither of them had seen any sign of this. (Well, they hadn't seen any sign besides that weirdo that one time, and the fact that Otto always got dizzy spells when he walked past the bookshop, which, in hindsight, should have been an obvious clue.) Diagon Alley was so different from any place Harry had ever known, so interesting, so magical - he wasn't an isolated case like he and Harry and everyone else had thought, he was /magical/ - and it had been under his nose the whole time.

"Gringotts," Hagrid said as the three stopped in front of a massive, snowy white building, and Harry and Penny gaped. Every part of Gringotts bank shone, from its polished marble walls to the glass windows far above the roofs of the other shops in Diagon alley to the burnished bronze doors two short, swarthy goblins were holding open. Not even the (admittedly well-constructed) threatening poem on the second set of doors could dampen the pair's wonder. Once they reached the main lobby, Hagrid, Harry, and Penny made their way to a free goblin.

"Morning," Hagrid said. "We've come to take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe."

"You have his key, sir?" The goblin asked.

"Got it here somewhere," Hagrid said as he began to empty his pockets. Penny resisted the urge to laugh as the pile of things on the goblin's book of numbers grew. Finally, Hagrid found a tiny golden key and placed it on the counter.

"That seems to be in order."

"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," Hagrid said. "It's about the You-Know-What in Vault 713." Harry and Penny looked at each other; what was in Vault 713, and why was it so secret its name couldn't be mentioned but not secret enough to require a separate trip?

"Very well," the goblin said, and he handed the letter and key back to Hagrid. "I will have someone take you down to both vaults Griphook!"

Griphook was another goblin let them to a cart. Penny whooped with glee as they sped down twisting cart tracks at breakneck speed. When they stopped outside the Potter vault, Griphook fit the tiny key into the door, and a lot of green smoke came billowing out. When it cleared, Harry gasped; inside was more money than he had seen in his life. Mounds of gold. Columns of Silver. Heaps of bronze.

"All yours," Hagrid said as he and Penny helped Harry pile some of it into a bottomless bag. "The gold ones are Galleons. Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and 29 Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough."

"Simple like the imperial system," Penny muttered under her breath, and Harry snickered. "Vault 713 now, please, and can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," Griphook said. Penny cheered.

Vault 713 had no keyhole, but the door melted away when Griphook ran one finger along the door. The vault itself was empty except for a grubby brown paper package on the floor, which Hagrid carefully put into his pocket.

"Might as well get yer uniform," Hagrid said once they walked out of the bank and back into the bright summer morning. Hagrid led Harry and Penny to a shop labeled Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, would you mind if I slipped off for a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." The giant did still look a bit green, so Harry enter Madam Malkin's with Penny, feeling a bit nervous.

"Hogwarts, dear? Madam Malkin, a quat, smiling witch in mauve, said. "Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now, in fact." In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pointed her wand at his robes. Pins flew in an out of the fabric as the second witch fussed with the hem. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.

"Hello," the boy said. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," the boy said with a bored drawl. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

"I'm sure the school nurse will be very impressed when she has to set all your broken bones," Penny said. The boy looked shocked. "I've seen some high-speed collisions in my life, and they're pretty gruesome." Admittedly, those high-speed collisions were mostly car wrecks, but the kid didn't have to know that. The boy sniffed and turned away from them.

After Harry got his robes, Hagrid took them to a bookshop called Flourish and Blotts, where shelves of books stretched from massive, leather-bound tomes near the floor to smaller, slimmer volumes near the double-height ceiling. Harry struggled not to gawk as he and Hagrid started looking for his school books. As they grabbed /The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection/ by Quentin Trimble, Hagrid had to drag Harry away from /Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More)/ by Vindictus Viridian; when Hagrid wasn't looking, Penny discreetly shoved a copy into her backpack, along with Agamede Attaway's /Poisons and Antidotes/, Mary Mitchell's /Practical Potions Theory/, and a (very thick) copy of /A Short History of the Modern Magical World/ by Cicero Callaway. She had a feeling those books would come in handy very soon.

The three visited a few more shops - an equipment store for scales, two cauldrons, and a telescope, as well as an apothecary with parts from more animals than Penny could name - before stopping at Eeylops Owl Emporium so Harry could get a pet for his birthday (which, apparently, was at the end of July). "Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago," Hagrid said, "you'd be laughed at - an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get you an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry your mail an' everythin'." As soon as they entered the dark store, a large snowy owl hooted and went to land on Harry's shoulder.

"Hey, girl," Harry said as he petted the owl's feathers. The owl seemed to lean in to his touch. "I think I'll name you Blizzard." Blizzard the owl hooted and tucked her head under her wing as they walked towards Ollivanders, a narrow, shabby-looking shop at the very end of Diagon Alley.

The inside of Ollivanders was just as small as the outside would suggest, a deviation from the norm of the other shops they'd visited; there was only a spindly little chair and thousands of narrow boxes piled up against the walls. Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up from the magic in the air; if Otto was with him (if he had been able to drag Otto here because Otto was in a place where he could find them), he would've probably passed out - maybe even had a seizure like that one time in the park - by now.

"Good afternoon," a soft voice said, and Harry jumped. An old man with wide, pale eyes was standing before him.

"Hello," Harry said awkwardly.

"Ah yes," the man said. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It was a statement, not a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work. Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. And your companion's mother's was thirteen inches exactly, chestnut, unyielding. A loyal wand, not the most magically powerful but incredibly dedicated to its carrier. Now that was a difficult match to find…"

"You knew my mother?" Penny asked.

"I've known every witch and wizard in Britain," Ollivander said, "and one as clearsighted as you is not a simple muggle. You're Ceridwen Dearborn's daughter without a doubt - you have her eyes. Her skill with plants and potions, too, if you put your mind to it; a little less magic won't do you any harm there." Ollivander turned back to Harry. "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that made /that/, too. " Ollivander gestured at Harry's scar. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands… well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do… Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again… Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?" Ollivander didn't look to see Hagrid's nod. "Well, not - Mr. Potter. Let me see." Ollivander pulled out a tape measure, which floated and began to measure Harry as Ollivander kept talking. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er - well, I'm right-handed," Harry said, his eyes now on the tape measure fixating on his right arm.

"Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter, and no two wands are the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand." Ollivander picked a box off the shelf seemingly at random. "Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave." As soon as Harry waved the wand, Ollivander snatched it out of his hand. "Maple and phenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy - no, no - here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy - Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere - I wonder, now - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

As Harry took the wand, he felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air, and a stream of red and gold sparks shot out from its end like a firework. "Oh, bravo!" Ollivander said. "Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... The phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave another feather - just one other. It is very surious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother - why, its brother gave you that scar... Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great." Harry quickly paid and left the shop, new wand in hand. He'd never wanted to go back to a place so much and simultaneously never go back to it again as he did Ollivander's shop.

He had his wand and his train ticket, and Penny had some supplemental reading (apparently for both of them). He could figure this magic business out.

* * *

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	4. Moving Forwards

**As with the last chapter, parts of this (namely the train ride and sorting) borrow heavily from _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_.**

Chapter 4: Moving Forwards

* * *

"Why is there a snowy owl in your office?" Raven asked. Nero sighed.

"I don't know how she got here," Nero said, "but she arrived ten minutes ago carrying a letter." Raven looked at him as if he was crazy. "I'm not joking, Natalya. Here." Nero passed her the sealed envelope that had been tied to the owl's leg. The back of it was labeled only with a name: Otto Malpense. There was no return address (or sending address, for that matter). Raven raised her eyebrows.

"Do you think he knows about this?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Nero said, "but he isn't finding out about it from me. Not after the escape attempt last week." Otto was one of his more cunning students, and that level of cunning combined with this level of bizarre was not a good sign. The envelope could contain all sorts of things that would lead Otto to attempt another escape, and H.I.V.E.'s security and cleanup budget was already tight.

...

"Are we sure this is a good idea?" Robin asked as Harry carefully set up a Bunsen burner beneath his cauldron.

"We've got a fume hood, we've double-checked both the ingredient and theory books to make sure we know what we're doing, and this is the easiest and least dangerous potion in the book," Penny said as she set out ingredients. "If I can't do this, we've wasted some ingredients and time. If I can, it's proof of concept that I can do any potion whose recipe doesn't call for a wand, which would be dead useful. Did you know they have a cure for the common cold? Blood-replenishing potions? An instant sedative? Incredibly effective numbing agents? Working truth serum? The possibilities are endless."

"Don't try the Pepperup," Harry warned. "The theory book mentions 'an incredibly narrow therapeutic band for muggles.'"

"But still!" Penny said. "We can treat injuries and commit acts of redistribution much more easily!" Harry rolled his eyes; Penny had stumbled across the euphemism of "redistribution" for stealing a while ago and had fallen in love with it.

"If you blow up the orphanage and Mrs. McReedy gets mad at you, it's not my fault," Robin said as she got as far away from the pair's experiment as she could. She knew they thought it wasn't going to blow up, but her past experience with Harry's gift told her that nothing was known for certain, at least for very long.

The neighborhood park, with its sad swings and dead grass, was pretty far away from the shed at the back of St. Sebastian's. She'd go over there with her brother and maybe some of the others and have a nice afternoon there instead of worrying about whether the shed would catch fire or explode (again).

...

"We were so close to succeeding," Shelby grumbled as she scrubbed down the lab tables in H.I.V.E.'s Biology department. The (suspiciously red and brown) stains stubbornly refused to come out of the tables' wooden legs.

"We were nowhere close to succeeding," Otto said. "The submarine dock was fake. Our EMP was fake. Everything we were counting on was fake."

"The plant wasn't fake," Laura said.

"We weren't planning on the plant attacking everyone," Otto pointed out. "We didn't even know Violet existed until it got loose." _We also didn't know yesterday morning that Nero is connected to Wing's mother… somehow,_ Otto thought but didn't say; Wing had asked him not to tell the girls until he was certain the connection existed and what it was.

Their plan had failed, and Otto didn't see any of the others he had thought up and discarded succeeding in its place; H.I.V.E. was in control of too many variables for him to succeed right now. He couldn't get back to St. Sebastian's - he couldn't get back to Harry - despite his best efforts and best planning, but his allies couldn't return home, either. They were all stuck here together, watching and waiting for something, _anything_ to slip up and let them leave, and his new friends needed him. Not as much as the kids at St. Sebastian's needed him, but they needed him nonetheless.

Otto had never been good at ignoring allies in need.

...

"Do you have everything?" Robert asked as he and Harry walked through King's Cross station.

"You watched me pack my trunk, Robert," Harry said.

"Wand?"

"In my trunk."

"Knife?"

"In my pocket, just in case," Harry said. Otto had given him that knife; he wasn't going to lose it.

"Ticket?"

"In my other pocket."

"Do you know how to get onto the platform?" Harry froze; Hagrid had forgotten to mention that. Robert checked the time. "We've got ninety minutes until the train leaves, so let's wait for someone else to find it." Harry and Robert settled back, and, within minutes, a woman carrying a barn owl in a large cage and a girl with hair that shifted from brown to pink as she moved through the crowd walked up to the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten and… slipped into it. Robert raised an eyebrow, and Harry sighed.

 _"Of course_ I need to pass through the barrier," Harry muttered as he walked up to the barrier. After a moment, he opened his eyes to see a platform filled with people in funny clothing and a scarlet steam engine. Carefully, with a cap pulled down over his forehead so no one could see his scar, Harry boarded the train and started looking for an empty compartment. Instead, he found a bushy-haired girl and a round-faced boy.

"Have you seen a toad?" the girl asked in a rather bossy tone of voice. "Neville's lost one."

"I haven't," Harry said. "I just got onto the train."

"Would you like to share a compartment with us?" the girl asked. "I found an empty one because my parents dropped me off early - we weren't sure if the Express would leave at eleven exactly or if I'd need some buffer time - they aren't magic, nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is - that's mentioned several times in _A History of Magic_ and _Hogwarts, a History_ \- I'm Hermione Granger, by the way." In Harry's opinion, Hermione was the sort of obscure name he'd expect from a pureblood, but he had seen far stranger things in the past month than a muggleborn named Hermione. "Who are you?"

"I'm Harry," Harry said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Hermione." Hermione gasped.

"You're Harry Potter!" she said. "I know all about you - I got a few books for background reading, and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."_

"I know," Harry said; he and Penny had had a good laugh about their guesses to Harry's life after his parents died. " _Great Wizarding Events_ was decent, but Callaway's histories - all of them - had very... _interesting_ guesses about me now. Including that I, an eleven-year-old preteen who didn't know what magic _was_ until about a month ago, am six feet tall and have masteries in five subjects. So, what house do you think you'll be in?" If Hermione consciously noticed the abrupt shift in subject, it didn't bother her at all as she launched into her answer.

"I've been asking around, and I hope I'll be in Gryffindor, it sounds like the best; after all, Headmaster Dumbledore was in it, though I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad - I like learning, and they have their own private library, which would be nice - but I really think that-"

...

"Did Dora get onto the train safely?" Mary Mitchell asked as she and Andromeda sat in the cafe in King's Cross Station and watched the late arrivals rush for the Hogwarts Express. Andromeda nodded.

"She tripped on the first stair and almost crushed Vera's cage, but otherwise, it went off without a hitch," Andromeda said. "There was nothing to worry about, really; there haven't been any attacks on the platform since the war ended."

"Thank heaven for small mercies," Mary said. "Those were terrifying. Remember my first year?".

"That was one of the nastier ones." Andromeda shuddered. "Oh, look at the Fawleys' outfits this year!" Mary glanced to see a black-haired man, girl, and boy in neon robes raced towards the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten. "I thought Alfred had more taste than that."

"Fawley's always loved bright colors and outlandish fashions," Mary said. "At least his robes have both sleeves this time."

"True. So," Andromeda sipped her tea, "how's Laura? Still making magic with computers?"

"I assume so." Andromeda raised an eyebrow. "Laura… Laura's continuing her education away from home and is not allowed to contact me. I think she's fine, but…"

"You only know something's gone wrong when the body comes home," Andromeda said.

"Exactly," Mary said. "I thought that particular bit of paranoia was behind me, especially since Laura took to technology so well, but… How's the firm? We haven't talked about that recently." Andromeda sighed.

"Like everything else, it has its ups and downs," Andromeda said. "We're mostly dealing with estates nowadays; most of the advocacy and criminal work stopped a few years after the war. We're still trying to get a trial for Sirius-"

"Still?" Mary asked. "They haven't even held a trial? Not that I trust the Wizengamot to hold a fair trial, but they haven't even made an attempt at a kangaroo court?"

"I'm afraid not," Andromeda said as she checked her watch. "I need to get going; I have a meeting in an hour. Here's to your problem being solved without bloodshed."

"And to yours being solved," Mary said as Andromeda found an empty corner and apparated away.

...

As the Sorting Hat was placed onto Harry's head, the entire hall fell silent; the quiet whispers of older students as the first years were sorted vanished entirely. For Harry, the undivided attention was more than a little unnerving.

"Hmm," a small voice in Harry's ear said, and Harry jumped. "Difficult, very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either; no, far from it… There's talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting… So where shall I put you?" Harry considered the question; from his and Penny's readings of _Hogwarts, a History_ , he was probably meant to be a Slytherin, but the dark looks cast on the green table (not to mention from the people seated at said table) discouraged him from that. Next up was probably Hufflepuff - he was hardworking and diligent, maybe not in the way Helga had intended, but it was the thought that counted, right? But he could learn so much in Ravenclaw, and he had so much to learn about the wizarding world…

"So much to learn, eh?" the small voice said. "That's Slytherin ambition right there… You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that…" Harry thought back to his trip to Ollivanders; _great_ didn't necessarily mean _good_ here, and he didn't particularly want to be evil right now. "No? Well, if you're sure - there's a path to greatness too in RAVENCLAW!" After a moment of stunned silence, the bronze and blue table erupted into cheers. Harry raced to it and the relative obscurity of a crowd as quickly as possible.

As soon as "Zabini, Blaise" had become a Slytherin and McGonagall had rolled up her scroll and taken the Sorting Hat away, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet. He beamed at the mass of students in front of him, arms opened wide as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all here. "Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" Dumbledore paused as the students wondered where this was going. "Thank you!" He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered; Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.

The question of whether the Headmaster was a bit mad was erased from Harry's mind as the empty golden dishes in front of him filled with food: roast beef and roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon, steak, boiled potatoes and roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peppermint humbugs for some unknown reason, peas, carrots, gravy and ketchup… It all looked delicious, and the Pumpkin Pasties from the train felt like they were forever ago. Harry loaded his plate with his favorites and tucked in.

After Harry had finished eating, the last traces of dessert disappeared, and Dumbledore stood again. The hall fell silent. "Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore winked at the Gryffindor table. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone intetested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch." Dumbledore paused. "And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Harry laughed before he realized that the headmaster was completely serious. Then he started thinking; what was in the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side? Why was it here if it was so dangerous? Was there anything keeping him from finding out the mysterious dangers of the third-floor corridor? And if there wasn't, what was to stop him from trying?

* * *

 **Liked it? Hated it? Review and let me know! Next chapter is where things _really_ start to get interesting at Hogwarts and H.I.V.E.**


	5. A Little Learning

Chapter 5: A Little Learning (Is a Dangerous Thing)

"A little learning is a dangerous thing." - Alexander Pope

* * *

Harry was pleasantly surprised when, on his first Thursday at Hogwarts, he made it down to the dungeons with only two wrong turns and with five minutes to spare; the day before, he had ended up at the forbidden corridor in his attempt to get to Transfiguration, which he was almost late to. However, as he found the Potions room and looked at the jars of floating eyeballs and preserved organs (not all of which he was sure _weren't_ human remains), Harry wished he hadn't been quite so quick in finding the creepiest part of the castle. Harry's immediate impression of the dungeons as the perfect set for a horror movie wasn't shaken when Professor Snape, a tall man with greasy black hair and cold black eyes, opened the door to the Potions room and told the gathered first years to sit in pairs at the stained work tables inside it.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," Snape said at a volume barely above a whisper; it was more than enough to be heard throughout the classroom. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." Snape paused. No one dared to breathe. "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry frowned. The combination sounded familiar, but none of the potions in _Magical Drafts and Potions_ contained only two ingredients. The preparation was probably an important clue; according to _Practical Potions Theory,_ wormwood infusion wasn't generally used in recipes because of its extreme soporific effect, and he was pretty sure asphodel root affected mood and sleep too… "Is it the Draught of Living Death, sir?" Harry guessed.

"Potter, what's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Snape asked. This one, at least, Harry actually knew; it was in the middle of Chapter Two of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi._

"They're the same plant," Harry said. "Also known as aconite."

"And where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"Harry had no idea; his and Penny's skimming of _Magical Drafts and Potions_ had mentioned a bezoar once or twice, but it didn't mention where they were formed or what they did.

"I don't know," Harry said. Snape scowled.

"For your information, Potter," Snape said, "a bezoar is a stone tamen from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. A point from Ravenclaw for your lack of preparation." Snape flicked his wand and instructions for preparing a cure for boils appeared on the blackboard at the front of the room. "Well, what are you waiting for? The potion you will be making today is on the board. Pair off and get to work!"

Harry was partnered with Michael Corner, a boy in his house who Harry quickly decided to never willingly partner with again. As Harry carefully crushed snake fangs and (hopefully not dangerous to humans) venom pooled on the table, Michael crumbled dried nettles they needed between his fingers and talked about how his father was the "number one supplier of ingredients for professional potionmakers in Great Britain".

"My father says that nettles should be crushed before you use them," Michael said as Harry struggled to start and maintain a steady flame beneath the cauldron, which was roughly halfway full with water. "They compress into nice little cakes that way. Dad started grinding them up like this a year ago, and Macmillan's dad, who is the sole supplier for St. Mungo's" Corner gestured to a stout, blond Hufflepuff boy, "doubled his purchases despite the higher price because it saved brewing time. His potionmakers must have spent _forever_ fiddling with scales to weigh them before that; once they're crushed, you can just measure them by volume, and that takes so much less time." Michael dumped a mound of nettles that was at least twice the amount they needed by either volume or weight into the cauldron. Almost instantaneously, thick, dark teal smoke that smelled like cherries started pouring out of the cauldron. Snape's nostrils flared as Harry ducked under the table to avoid the rapidly growing plume, which was coating the ceiling in a layer of ice.

"Everyone out of the room now!" Snape yelled. The class quickly rushed into the hallway; Snape sealed the door behind them so only a wisp of smoke escaped. "It seems _Mister Potter_ was too distracted by his fame to measure his nettles properly." Snape pronounced Harry's name as if it was a swear word. "Fifteen points from Ravenclaw and four days of detention for his lack of attention. Your homework is to write a short essay - six to eight inches of parchment - on the uses and dangers of dried nettles. Next Thursday, I will be demonstrating this potion for you dunderheads myself," Snape's tone implied that such a demonstration was a waste of his talents, "and you will each make your own sample _perfectly._ You are all dismissed; I need the rest of the period to try to make the Potions room habitable for the next class." With that, Snape cast some spell on himself - a fishbowl appeared over his head - and walked back into the potions lab.

As Harry and the rest of his potions class rushed out of the dungeons and onto the sunny Hogwarts lawn, Blizzard swooped down and landed on his shoulder. Several of her feathers were ruffled or damaged, and her claws and beak were empty.

"Couldn't find him?" Harry said. Blizzard hooted sadly. "Are you willing to make another trip?" Blizzard looked at him and made a motion that almost looked like a nod. Harry pulled a spare scrap of parchment and quill out of his bag and started writing another letter.

Maybe Blizzard wouldn't get lost this time. Maybe Otto would get this one. Maybe Otto would reply to this one, and they could plan how to get into the forbidden corridor or just talk about what had happened since he disappeared. Otto would be _so_ surprised when he found out the real source of Harry's powers…

"How did you never learn to pick locks?" Shelby asked as she, Otto, Laura, and Wing prepared for their first practical on infiltration the next morning. A dozen locks and just as many methods for picking them (both actual lock picks and improvised versions - Ms. Leon hadn't specified which they would be allowed to use) were scattered across the table between them, and Shelby was the only one to have had success in the thirty minutes they had been practicing.

"My little brother was great at opening manual locks," Otto said. "He'd wave his hand over them and they'd unlock, just…" Laura dropped the combination lock she was attempting to open and looked at Otto, eyes wide.

"Like magic?" Laura asked, and Otto nodded. "Could he only open locks, or did he do other things as well?"

"He did all sorts of things, really," Otto said. "Moving objects, changing their colors or weight, hiding things in plain sight… He blew up a lot of electronics, too - anything more complex than a watch would fry if he held it for too long or altered it."

"Otto, that isn't just _like_ magic," Laura said, "that _is_ magic. Your brother's a wizard, Otto," Laura glanced around to check that no one was looking at them and lowered her voice to a whisper, "just like how my mum's a witch."

"Your mom's a witch?" Shelby said in her normal, easily overheard voice. "Like a wiccan or like a proper witch with a flying broom and cauldron and black cat and stuff?"

"We didn't have a cat of any color," Laura said, "and Dad said it was too risky since we lived in a muggle - non-magical - neighborhood. But Mum was a potions brewer - a really good one, actually - so we had a lot of cauldrons. She taught me to do basic brewing in one of the less fancy ones. I'm not making this up, Shelby!" Laura hissed. "Otto, you might be able to open locks too - try knocking on the key opening; magic runs in families, and even my Dad can open simple locks sometimes, and he was kicked out because he's a squib - someone without magic whose parents are magical."

"Harry's not related to me by blood, Laura," Otto said, "and I don't think magic agrees with me, anyways." That would explain the regular migraines he had when Harry performed magic. The lock he had been fiddling with finally popped open. "And I don't need it to pick open a simple lock. See?"

"Do it again," Shelby said. "We don't know what tomorrow's exercise will look like."

Nero knew what would be inside his office. He knew from the moment one of the security patrols called in a "Code Thirteen" (unusual occurrence without present danger). He knew from the trail of white feathers in the hallway between one of the outside access doors and his office. He knew from the fact that it was a Friday, and Fridays, in Nero's experience, had always been the day for seemingly impossible things. So, when Nero opened his office to find a bloodied, caged snowy owl for the fifth time in as many weeks, he might have been disappointed, but he was far from surprised.

"Again?"

"Yes," Raven said. "I think it's the same bird as last time."

"It was a rhetorical question, Natalya. Did you catch the letter this time?"

"Rodriguez did," Raven said. "It's still addressed to Otto. No return address; I guess the bird's supposed to carry a reply back."

"Give it to me." Raven pulled a parchment envelope out of one of her pockets and placed it on his desk; Nero quickly opened it.

 _Hey Otto,_

 _How have you been? Actually, I should probably ask_ where _have you been? It's been a crazy month back here, and I need to talk to you about some things. When you get this, tell me what's happened to you and if I can safely tell you what's happened to me. Blizzard (the owl) knows how to get it back to me and will hopefully be able to find you again._

 _Harry_

"It's one of Otto's friends from the orphanage," Nero said. "The scrawny dark-haired boy, I think." Nero quickly grabbed a pen and piece of paper; he had an idea to make the owl's regular visits stop, and he desperately needed them to stop.

"Snape's behavior needs to stop!" Hermione said as she slammed a stack of potions books onto the table next to Harry.

"You had a lesson with him?" Harry asked as he tried to think up a conclusion to his potions essay; he only had an inch more to write, but he'd had an inch more to write for a day and a half, and he couldn't give up now…

"I wouldn't call that a lesson," Hermione said. "He didn't teach us anything - he kept asking only Neville questions even though I had my hand up - he didn't even warn us about the porcupine quills, and when Neville forgot to remove the cauldron from the fire, he just took away points and didn't even want to send him to the Hospital Wing! I told Professor Mcgonagall, but she said her hands were tied by Headmaster Dumbledore and that she doubted anything would be done!" Harry grimaced; Flitwick had said the same thing, albeit in subtler language. "The Weasley twins said that Snape mistreats everyone except the Slytherins and that at least some of the Slytherins get extra lessons! Harry, are you listening to me? Something has to be done about this!"

"It does," Harry said, "but I don't have any advice, Hermione, other than to somehow force Snape's resignation." A forged letter wouldn't do, so he'd have to get creative - maybe an injury would do it… but he was distracting himself from his essay, which he really needed to finish before he procrastinated even more. Penny might have some advice; he could ask her once Blizzard got back. "How's Gryffindor been treating you?"

"Fine," Hermione said in a tone that very clearly implied that she was _not_ fine. "It's just like school back home, except I don't get to go home to my parents after classes. How's Ravenclaw?"

Before Harry could figure out a reply to that, he heard a tap on the window next to him. Blizzard was carrying a letter, but she seemed just as dispirited as when she had come back empty-clawed. Harry eased open the window - he doubted that owls were allowed in the library - and took the letter tied to Blizzard's leg. As soon as the letter was in Harry's hand, Blizzard flew off, and Harry closed the window again.

"Who sent you a letter?" Hermione asked. "I've sent my parents one, but they haven written back yet - they're probably really busy at the practice since school just started - but I hope they'll reply soon; I miss them quite a bit."

"A friend," Harry said because describing Otto as an older brother would raise all sorts of questions from Hermione. (Everything raised all sorts of questions - and, if he was lucky, answers - from Hermione.) "This isn't his handwriting, though." The address on the back of the envelope was in a particularly loopy cursive, nothing like Otto's blocky letters. Feeling a sudden sense of dread, Harry opened the letter.

 _Mister Potter,_

 _Mister Malpense is in a top-secret correctional facility that does not allow contact with the outside world due to the security risk. He has not received any of your previous letters, and he will not receive any you may send in the future. Please cease your attempts to contact him, or we will shoot your owl._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Dr. Nero  
Headmaster of H.I.V.E._

Harry frowned; he and Otto had certainly done things that could lead to them being arrested and sent to jail, but the woman who had grabbed Otto had only gone after him, and she had seemed as far as possible from an officer of the law. (Also, this Dr. Nero had intercepted his previous letters, but those had all been sent individually; maybe Otto would get one if he did something like his stack of Hogwarts letters…) However, right now, he had no idea how to prove that H.I.V.E. wasn't a correctional facility (well, at least not a legal one) or get letters to Otto, and he had a much more immediate problem to deal with.

Harry packed his school bag and walked towards the Owlery. He needed to ask Penny if she had any ideas for dealing with Snape… and to write the conclusion to his Potions essay at some point, which he had completely forgotten to do.

"Yes!" Penny cheered as the potion in Harry's spare cauldron turned a perfect robin's egg blue. "I've done it!"

"Done what?" Tom asked.

"The Calming Draught," Penny said. "I've been trying to make it for a week, and it kept exploding, and I finally have a viable finished product!"

"Great," Tom, wondering what the next caustic concoction Penny wanted to make would be, said.

"Yes, it is," Penny said, "because it means I know the ingredient measurements in metric units. That will make making other potions vastly easier. Besides, the theory book said that this acts as a powerful aerosol sedative on muggles." Tom grinned; that actually _was_ good news (for them, at least).

"The bank four blocks over _is_ getting a bit big for its britches…" Tom's train of thought was interrupted by a tap on the window. Blizzard was perched on the windowsill with a letter addressed to Penny in her beak. Tom quickly opened the window to let the bird in as Penny grabbed her letter.

"Harry wants to know what potions accidents he can cause subtly," Penny said. "Especially those that relate to the boil cure potion."

"He's coming to _us_ for subtlety?" Tom asked.

"He figures I have more experience with potion accidents than he does," Penny said. "The cure for boils contains porcupine quills, which explode pretty easily when heated… but that wouldn't work as a sabotage, the teacher would know that… bulbadox power is a heat retainer and irritant - if you coated the cauldron with it, that would cause it to explode. Plus, bulbadox powder is difficult to spot with the naked eye, so the teacher might not notice it. I got an ounce of it when I grabbed the second set of potions supplies; it's next to the powdered graphorn horn." Penny grabbed a small pot with a red lid and, after checking that it was actually bulbadox powder, sealed it as best she could with wax. She then scribbled her plan onto the back of Harry's letter. "Blizzard, can you carry both of these back to Harry?" The owl hooted, grabbed the pot in one claw and the letter in the other, and flew off into the night. "Now, about that bank…"

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	6. The Human Proclivity

Chapter 6: The Human Proclivity (to Do Several Fool Things at Once)

"Doing one fool thing after another is not so terrible when you consider the human proclivity to do several fool things at once." - Robert Brault

* * *

A Compendium of Multiplication Charms was exactly the kind of book Harry knew he'd need to get back at Nero: ten inches tall and three inches thick, with a sturdy leather binding and worn gold lettering along the spine, full of tiny type smudged by generations of eager fingers and step-by-step instructions for how to make one letter turn into forty, eighty, hundreds that would fill the halls of wherever Otto was being kept and make it so that there was no way Nero could intercept all of Harry's letters. (Not that he understood all the instructions - it was mostly "Goshawk's theory" this and "widdershins quarter-loop at fifteen-degree incline" that - but he had written a trite but serviceable conclusion to his Potions essay yesterday, so he had the entirety of Sunday to decipher it.)

Just as Harry had found the specific variation he thought he'd need (time-delayed mass multiplication) and was attempting to read it and eat his breakfast simultaneously, Blizzard swooped in to snatch his bacon and to dump a small, red-capped pot in Harry's lap. Harry quickly read the accompanying note and grinned; this was the perfect solution to his other little problem. It had come at a convenient time, too; his first night of detention with Snape was tonight, so he had four chances to find Snape's demonstration cauldron and sneak the bulbadox powder into it.

It might be very simple; Snape might wash his cauldrons as religiously as he washed his hair and adhere to safety measures as well as he announced them in class. Or Snape might be much more careful and wash his cauldron the night before; Harry wasn't sure a fine coat of bulbadox on metal would survive a good scrubbing. Both of those possibilities assumed Harry could even find Snape's cauldron, much less have enough time alone with it to coat the inside without Snape noticing.

Harry carefully tucked the pot inside his right pocket - he'd need to examine it before tonight's detention - and A Compendium of Multiplication Charms into his bookbag. He could figure out how to sabotage Snape and contact Otto later; right now, his eggs were getting cold.

 **.oOo.**

"Blizzard, please?" Harry said as he stroked her feathers. The envelope he had hopefully correctly performed a time-delayed mass-multiplication charm on was on the table next to him. "You just need to get this in the building - not even near where Nero can catch you. Will you try just this once?" Blizzard shook her head. "It's the only way I can get a message out to Otto. Please, Blizzard? For me?" Blizzard flew off before he could tie the letter to her leg. "Well be that way, and see who lets you steal their bacon now." Leaving his letter on the "to be mailed" table, Harry walked out of the Owlery and towards the dungeons for his detention.

Snape was waiting outside the door of the potions lab. "Late as ever, Potter. Just like your father. I have some cauldrons for you to clean; even you shouldn't be able to mess that up." Snape gestured for Harry to enter the lab, where a stack of cauldrons absolutely crusted in filth were stacked next to a basin and relatively small bottle of cleaner. On a table next to Snape's blackboard was a shining bronze cauldron, which Harry guessed was Snape's cauldron. "Well? Get to work!" Snape retreated to his office but kept the door open. Harry could see him glaring at him as he started to scrub at the layers of rust and residue and possibly waste Snape added to make the job worse of the first cauldron. It wasn't that bad a job; it didn't involve any creepy ingredients (like the jar of eyes that kept looking at him), and he'd done dishes for the orphanage kitchen before, some of which got downright nasty.

Still, he found himself drawn to the shiny brass cauldron… it would be so easy to add a little bit of bulbadox to it, so quick, so simple… but Snape would catch him, and it might not even be the right cauldron… but it would be so easy…

Harry, having cleaned four cauldrons until they shined and gotten the worst excesses off a fifth, left the Potions lab two hours later with the bulbadox power firmly in his pocket. He'd have to figure out how to approach Snape's desk tomorrow night.

 **.oOo.**

There was no owl in his office this week. There were mounds of paperwork on his desk - Pike was trying to get approval for an experiment with high-temperature superconductors that he promised wouldn't injure any students or staff members this time, and it was time to start planning next year's Hunt, and Jackson Jackson III had thought it a good idea to stick his head in front of Pike's newest superlaser while it was heating up to check if it was on (quite honestly, they needed a new course in "avoiding natural selection" for the Henchman stream), and the damage caused by Nigel Darkdoom's unintentional plant monster was still in the process of being fixed - but there was no snowy owl with a letter for Otto Malpense that looked very put out when said letter never reached him. Nero supposed he should count that as a success.

Admittedly, it was a miniscule success compared to the constant running chaos of everything else in his life right now, and it wasn't a success he could tell anyone about - Gregori would probably burst into laughter if he mentioned the owl - but it was a victory nonetheless, and with the way next month's end-of-year meeting was starting to look with regards to H.I.V.E. and himself, Nero would take any victory he could get.

He started on the report on Jackson Jackson III's death, which was the latest (and dumbest) in a series of fatal and disabling accidents in the laser lab. He should make Pike restrict access to it - have it only open to Science and Technology students in their fifth and sixth years except for special classes - or increase the supervision inside of it. Not that Pike would probably listen to him - Pike's idea of safety protocols matched the "bad laboratory safety" posters in middle school science classrooms (minus the horseplay and plus lasers) eerily well - but it might cut their accident rate for a few quarters.

Just as he was finishing the report on that little disaster and was bracing himself to start the reports on the (hopefully not to later be prefaced with first) Darkdoom Incident when a message arrived on his computer from the security staff. Look at cavern. Bemused, Nero remotely accessed the security camera feed from H.I.V.E.'s hangar/primary access. Then checked to make sure that was the actual feed and not an April Fool's joke six months too late. And then checked again.

The entire base of the cavern was filled with sheets of paper. Judging from the open doorways, it was about a foot deep at the edges of the cavern (and probably filled the surrounding hallways as well). If Nero had to guess, he would say that each one was almost definitely a letter addressed to Otto Malpense. And, though it was hard to tell (particularly since the image was becoming corrupted), the pile appeared to be growing.

So much for little victories.

 **.oOo.**

"Did any of y'all understand that?" Shelby asked as they walked away from their first Finances class. "Because I sure didn't."

"It was very basic," Franz said. "As simple as taking toffee from a toddler."

"You meant taking candy from a baby Franz," Nigel said, "and if you thought that was simple I don't want to know what you think is- what's that?" Their path back to Block Six was blocked by a layer of paper at least six inches thick, and the pile was expanding towards them.

"Magic," Laura whispered into Otto's ear. "I think it's your brother; my mum doesn't do charms like this." Otto picked up one of the pieces of paper; sure enough, he could make our Harry's handwriting in very faint ink on the front of it. "He must've forgotten to include the ink in the multiplication charm, so it's getting split between the copies - a pretty common mistake… your brother's Harry Potter?"

"Yeah," Otto whispered back as he dug around in his bag for a pen. "Why's that important?"

"It's… complicated," Laura said. "I'll explain later. But it means that your brother's not just any wizard." Otto turned the paper over (thankfully, it didn't multiply in his hand, unlike the one that had wormed its way under Wing's foot) and scribbled a quick message before realizing he had no way of sending it.

"How do you think this got-" Before Otto could finish his question, a barn owl swooped down and snatched the letter out of his hand.

"Owl mail," Laura said as the others stared at Otto's outstretched hand and the scattering of feathers on the top layer of papers. "Normally they're more polite than that."

"Okay…" Nigel said. "Let's head back; we won't be able to get to Block Six anytime soon."

Harry knew he wouldn't be getting back to Ravenclaw Tower anytime soon - his detention had started early, and the stack of cauldrons seemed to be growing - but he couldn't stop grinning nonetheless. A cauldron (there were no clocks in the potions lab - it could have been an hour or half an hour or two hours) ago, a fight had broken out somewhere in the dungeons, and Snape had stepped out to settle it. Settling fights in the dungeons took enough time for Harry to thoroughly coat the inside of Snape's bronze cauldron with bulbadox powder and be back to scrubbing cauldrons by the time he returned.

Harry hoped he'd messed with the right cauldron, but even if he hadn't, he could try something similar at a later date, and bulbadox reacted to a lot of potions; there was a considerable risk the next potion Snape would attempt to brew in the shining bronze cauldron he'd left on his desk would react with bulbadox in a negative manner.

As he finished another cauldron (the sixth of the night; it had to be getting late), Harry wondered what Tom and Penny were getting up to. They always seemed to have some sort of scheme running, and Penny had been oddly quiet about it in her note...

 **.oOo.**

As soon as she saw that the newspaper's headline read LONDON BANK ROBBED - GUARDS FOUND ASLEEP - NO SUSPECTS, she knew it would be an interesting breakfast conversation.

"So, magic or sufficiently advanced con?" Andrew asked as he sipped his coffee.

"I'm going to say magic," Mary said. "Calming Draught is a very efficient sedative on muggles, and it's nearly undetectable, so they've probably got a brewer or procurer who knows Diagon Alley."

"I think it's just a sleepy guard and good thief," Andrew said. "There's too much tech involvement for it to be an all-magical operation."

"But it's pretty easy to recruit a few nonmagical-" An owl tapped on the kitchen windowsill. Mary groaned; owls almost never came bearing good news. She opened the window, gave the owl a treat, and quickly read the letter. "There's been a potions accident at Hogwarts - a big one. I'm on the investigations team. We convene in thirty minutes. I need to go."

"Love you, sweetheart," Andrew said as Mary grabbed her thickest protective robes - probably overkill for Hogwarts, but you never knew what you would come into contact with at the scene of a potions accident - and tucked them under her arm.

"Love you, too. Have fun at work; don't let the MacDonald account get you down," Mary called back as she walked out the door. It was a good five-minute walk to a park where no one would notice her disapparate, and the walk up to Hogwarts from the gates was ten minutes on a good day.

Today was probably not going to be a good day.

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	7. When I Found out I Could Make Mistakes

Chapter 7: When I Found out I Could Make Mistakes (I Knew I Was on to Something)

"It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." - Ornette Coleman

Bit of a warning: This is the chapter where the "Doubious Ethics" tag _really_ comes into play. Like, unremorseful (barely unsuccessful) attempted murder with massive collateral damage dubious.

* * *

When Harry woke up, he was confused. Where was he? The last thing he could remember was sitting in potions as Snape tipped some carefully ground porcupine quills into his cauldron. How had he gotten from sitting (half-hiding, really, after the grilling he'd gotten during his first potions class) behind Susan Bones and struggling to pay attention to Snape's lecture in the dungeons to lying on his back in a white, well-lit room that looked a bit like an old hospital ward? Harry strained his mind - surely something must have happened after Potions that lead to him being here - but all he could remember were Snape's derisive comments about people too stupid to intuitively know to remove the cauldron from the fire before adding porcupine quills and a flash of light that seemed to be as bright as the Sun.

Oh. A massive flash of light while Snape was brewing, followed by him being knocked out and waking up in a hospital. He'd done it, hadn't he? He'd actually done it. His plan had worked. It had been a bit more successful than anticipated (either the fancy brass cauldron Snape was using to make "a proper, medical-grade cure for boils, the quality of which far surpasses the abilities of you dunderheads" magnified the effects of the bulbadox powder or Penny didn't think to mention that the explosive reaction he was making packed the punch of _actual explosives),_ but it had worked nonetheless. And if the explosion had been powerful enough to knock him unconscious, Snape was probably going to be out of commission for quite a while since he had been far closer to the explosion than Harry.

Once he got past the "mostly accidental attempted murder" aspect, Otto would be so proud of him.

Over the faint sound of his ears ringing, Harry could hear people talking. Some of their voices were vaguely hushed as if they didn't wish to wake the patients (or to be overheard), but others didn't even try to be quiet, and Harry could make out most of their conversation.

"Where's Snape? We need to review his safety procedures-"

"He's at St.," the person speaking, who was trying to be quiet, mumbled something that sounded like the word "mangoes", but that didn't make any sense unless Snape was somehow visiting the patron saint of tropical fruit, "in critical but stable condition. The healers don't know when-"

"What safety procedures?" a woman hissed. "Honestly, we should be striking his name from our rolls if not actively recommending charges against him. The older students are saying he never put safety precautions on the board, not even for the Cure for Boils, which can easily cause a Level Two or Three incident in the hands of an inept first-year! That still doesn't explain how nearly two dozen cauldrons of Hiccoughing Solution - _Hiccoughing Solution!_ \- caused a Level Seven explosion-"

"Closer to a Level Eight, probably - it looks like the reaction melted Snape's cauldron and ate through the ventilation charms and safety wards in Potions Lab Three _and_ some of the wards in Lab One," a man, speaking at a normal volume with a flat, level tone, said. "And yes, Jones, I'm _quite_ sure the standard safety wards were in place at the time of the accident." Several people gasped. "It also might've not been Hiccoughing Solution; Mitchell's looking at the scene right now, and she suspects-"

"Mister Potter, are you awake?" a woman in a nurse's uniform straight from Florence Nightingale's time was standing at Harry's bedside. Harry blinked and rubbed his eyes.

"I guess?" the response came out shakier and less sarcastic than he was intending. The woman waved her wand, and amber light enveloped Harry's head.

"Minor tinnitus and a mild concussion, but no lasting effects," the woman said. She shoved a pair of potions vials into Harry's hands. "Drink these, Mister Potter, while I fetch one of the inspectors; they'd like to talk to you about… the events of this morning." Before Harry could get her to elaborate on that rather ominous and vague phrase, the woman had walked off. Harry downed the potions, and the ringing in his ears subsided as his mind raced.

At least some of the investigators clearly disliked Snape and were more than willing to put him at fault, but that would only last until someone discovered bulbadox residue inside Snape's cauldron, which Harry guessed would be found (if it hadn't been already) within the day. Once that happened, the "accident" would become a crime, and anyone with known access to bulbadox powder would be a prime suspect. He needed to get rid of Penny's gift and the attached letter _now._

The letter he could burn, but bulbadox powder was (obviously) highly dangerous when exposed to heat, and he didn't know if it might change the flames' color like lithium or copper salts did; he couldn't just toss it in the Ravenclaw Tower fireplace. No, he'd have to think up some other way of keeping any search from finding it. (Maybe reseal it and send it back to Penny, hoping that no one was watching the owls?)

Before he could do that, though, he'd need to talk to the investigators. That should be a piece of cake; he'd gotten caught by cops and security guards (and Mrs. McReedy) before, and they had always turned to putty the second the crocodile tears started flowing. He'd try to slip in mention of the dirty cauldrons - those _had_ to go against best practices, right? - but as long as he avoided mentioning messing with Snape's cauldron…

"Mister Potter?" the man standing at the foot of his bed had snow white hair trimmed close to his scalp. _"The_ Harry Potter? Chalcedonian Calloway, Mister Potter, truly honored to make your acquaintance, Fleamont was great friend of mine-"

"Err, hello," Harry said. "You have some questions for me? About… the accident?"

"Right," the man - Calloway - said. He tapped a severely trimmed quill, which began to hover over his notepad, with his wand and cleared his throat. "Statement number eighteen. Recorder: Chalcedonian Calloway. State your name for the record and please describe this morning's Potions class in as much detail as you can manage."

"My name is Harry James Potter." As Harry spoke, the quill frantically scribbled down his response. "Snape had announced that he would be brewing the potion we did last week as a demonstration." Calloway nodded.

"By 'the potion we did last week', I assume you're referring to the Cure for Boils?"

"If that's what it's called, then yeah. We tried to brew it last week, but no one got to finish because Michael dumped about half a cup of dried nettles into our cauldron and smoked out the room." Calloway winced but didn't look at all surprised. Harry guessed it must be a common mistake. "I was sitting near the back of the class so Snape wouldn't see me - he didn't seem to like me very much - but he was using a big brass cauldron and what looked like a Bunsen burner to brew the potion. I wish we'd had one of those last week; it would've made regulating the fire so much easier-"

"Er, Mister Potter, what is a 'Bunsen burner'?"

"Oh, it's a muggle device used to produce a small, controlled flame. We had one in our science lab at school."

"I suppose I'll ask Mary about it," Calloway muttered under his breath. "Did you happen to see what caused the explosion?"

"I'm not sure; Snape just tipped the porcupine quills in and then there was a great big flash of light and then I woke up here."

"I see. Do you know how Snape prepared his cauldron?"

"No, but I had a detention with him last week, and the standby student ones were super filthy. Like, an inch of crusty muck on all sides. It wouldn't surprise me if the inside of Snape's brass one was the same."

"How did you get detention?"

"Michael and I were sharing a cauldron when he dumped in the nettles, and Snape thought it was my fault." Calloway frowned.

"I see. One last question: do you know what bulbadox powder is?" Harry's pulse quickened, but his face didn't show it.

"Can't say I do. Sounds nasty, though. Can I go now?" Before Calloway could object, Harry was out of bed and going towards Ravenclaw Tower.

 _Get rid of the letter and bulbadox powder. Then figure out the rest._

 **.oOo.**

 _Start from what you know is true. Then figure out the rest._ Mary Mitchell breathed in, breathed out, and cast the diagnostic spell again. For the fifth time that day, the twisted heap of brass on Snape's desk, as well as splatters across the walls and ceiling of Potions Lab Three, started to faintly glow in a seemingly random array of hues. For Mitchell, who'd first peered through a spectroscope at five and had gotten her potions Mastery by mapping the colors _Spectra revelio_ created to the volatility of potions ingredients and using that system to predict the colors of potions at various stages of completion, the colors were anything but. The walls were splattered with the pale lavender of a Cure for Boils that had exploded mid-brewing, not the low-energy maroon of Hiccoughing Solution. The cauldron was coated in a sickly blue-green glow, similar to that of porcupine quills, threaded with the lilac-white of the potion. That was where the problem lay.

It could be that Snape hadn't watched his potion temperature (though it looked like he had a good burner set-up not unlike what she'd expect in a muggle chemistry lab - unlike the students, who had the "pray your flame spell is steady" firepit she remembered unfondly from her own Hogwarts years - and there was a silver sheen of mercury along the blackboard from a cracked thermometer), dumped the quills in too hot, and the unreacted ones had been melted into the cauldron as the explosion occurred, but something about that theory felt slightly… off to Mitchell. If that were true, there should also be unreacted porcupine quill - a lot more of it, in fact, than in what used to be the cauldron - on the ceiling, and the splatter color should be deep blue with purple undertones edging into the UV spectrum, barely visible to the naked eye. It made more sense if the cauldron had been coated in something beforehand - probably bulbadox powder, which had a glow just a hair bluer than that of porcupine quills - but any good Potions master would wash their cauldron before using it to avoid impurities, and that smacked of sabotage…

 _Start with what you know is true._ There had been an accident; the Cure for Boils had exploded mid-brewing, just after porcupine quills were added. It was being brewed, to the best of their knowledge, by Severus Snape, Potions Master and Master Brewer. Evidence pointed to the trigger ingredient being either porcupine quills or bulbadox powder, which had nearly identical magical signatures, even when viewed as proper spectra with actual bands and not by the naked eye; the distinguishing lines, at around 490 and 500 nm, blurred together on the equipment she'd brought. It didn't help that there was some porcupine quill in that mess, and she couldn't guarantee - she strongly suspected, in fact - not all of them had been integrated into the potion proper before the explosion. The only way to conclusively prove that there had been bulbadox powder in the cauldron, outside of a confession and particularly to stodgy old fools in the Wizengamot who thought of spectroscopy as the fanciful invention of an uppity mudblood - would probably be to set the remains of the cauldron on fire and see if it blew up in white sparks instead of red, and they'd never get permission to destroy evidence without circumstantial suspicion of sabotage first. If it had been deliberate - and Mitchell was 90% sure it was - had been either very lucky or unfortunately clever about it.

 _Then figure out the rest._ Why should she care if some Death Eater had met an untimely accident? Either he pissed off one of his students enough to make them want him dead, or someone was delivering some long-deserved justice to the world, and there was nothing here Mitchell could use to catch them anyways. She'd tell Calloway about her suspicions, and he'd put the cauldron in evidence, and any investigation would go nowhere, and that would be that. End of story. Mitchell walked out of the lab, up the stairs, and into the Hospital Wing, which was an utter madhouse packed to capacity. Roughly half of Hogwarts' current class - filled the beds, and Madam Pomfrey had recruited two seventh years to do triage in addition to a Healer from St. Mungo's to handle more severe cases. Walking among them, sitting at bedsides, and (if Mitchell was being honest) generally being in the medics' way were six people in Potions robes. Mitchell made a beeline for Chalcedonian, who was talking the ear off a distinctly burned and rather overwhelmed redhead.

"-simply must chat with your aunt about these new regulations sometime - oh Mary! I assume you've finished the preliminary scene investigation?" Calloway abruptly switched his focus to her. The redhead - probably a relative of someone in the Wizengamot, maybe Amelia, she'd had red hair, right? - sagged in relief. Mitchell gritted her teeth and nodded.

"Yes, _Chalcedonian,_ I have," she said. "The potion that exploded was definitely the Cure for Boils during brewing step 6. However, I strongly suspect, but cannot find evidence to prove," Mitchell dropped her voice, "that the reason for the reaction may not have been negligence but rather that the cauldron was coated in bulbadox powder." Calloway nodded gravely.

"How strongly."

"Very, but I cannot prove it without destroying the cauldron."

"Ah. Thank you for your report, and I expect that in writing by Friday - you know my owl address. There is one other matter I need to discuss with you, but I feel that we should do it in private." Calloway gestured towards an abandoned classroom, and Mary followed him out of the Hospital wing. "You may have noticed Snape was not in the Hospital Wing."

"I assumed he was behind one of the privacy screens."

"He is in an uninduced coma at St. Mungo's. The Healers are unsure when - or if - he will wake, and there is a lot of damage he needs to recover from. His hands were inches from the blast, Mary. They think he could lose fingers." Mitchell bit back a wince. "Hogwarts needs a new Potions teacher, and Dumbledore wishes for the League to nominate a candidate…"

"No."

"You are most eminently qualified. Youngest Mistress Emeritus in history, and that doesn't come easy for someone of your status - if you'd been anyone else, your thesis would've won you an Unspeakable's hood…"

"I've never taught before!"

"Your book on introductory potions theory is a marvel of writing…"

"I have a job!"

"I'm sure Macmillan will understand. Your work for him has pushed the boundaries of the possible, particularly with regards to medical potions for those less fortunate…"

"Why don't you do it? You're far more qualified than me."

"Conflict of interest! I chair the W.E.A. Board for Potions, I cannot teach the subject to anyone in Britain!" Mitchell sighed.

"Fine. Give me three days to talk to Macmillan and get my affairs in order, and I'm still apparating home on the weekends, but I'll teach for a semester."

"Excellent! Now, what is a 'Bunsen Burner'...?"

 **.oOo.**

Harry walked towards the Owlery quickly, but not too quickly; if someone found his brisk pace suspicious and searched him and found the half-empty jar of bulbadox powder buried deep in his shoulder bag, he'd be in deep trouble. He'd already tossed the letter into Ravenclaw Tower's fireplace after surreptitiously glancing around to check he was alone; as soon as Penny go this back, he was scot free. When he went to her perch, Blizzard hooted sharply and snapped at his fingers.

"I'm not even trying to send a letter to Otto this time!" Harry yelled. "This is for Penny!" Blizzard fluffed her wings and stuck out her leg. Before Harry could attach the pot, a massive, bloodied barn owl swooped down and proudly presented a crumpled note. "Err… thanks?" The owl hooted and flew off. Harry unfolded the piece of paper.

 _Harry -_

 _Laura says your magic is_ _magic_ _, and after this, I have to believe her. Try to find a contact method that doesn't involve creating a mountain of paper copies. (Fun to see, though.) I'm stuck at H.I.V.E. for the foreseeable future. No rescue advisable. How's your end?_

 _Otto_

 _P.S. You're famous?_

Harry's eyes widened, and he quickly scribbled a _Please advise - Harry_ underneath before refolding it and giving it to Blizzard as well. "Both the bot and the letter to Penny, please, and wait for a reply." Blizzard hooted and took off.

* * *

 **Liked it? Hated it? Review and let me know! Also, I intend for this to go back to a fortnightly schedule starting with this installment, but, as evidenced by the year-long, unplanned hiatus, I don't have a fucking clue what my writing schedule looks like at this point, so we'll see.  
**


	8. The Shortest Answer

Chapter 8: The Shortest Answer (is Doing)

"The shortest answer is doing." - Lord Herbert

* * *

It was a quarter past eight at night, and Courtney Chamberlain was _bored_. The shop wouldn't close for another forty-five minutes - as if anyone forgot they were planning to propose and bought a diamond ring after dark - and she was alone, watching the empty store and being watched by the blinking security camera, until then. _Blink, blink._ She wasn't even supposed to work closing today, but that bastard Fletchley had been a no show for his shift, so she'd been stuck here - literally, here, behind the counter, because the camera would catch if she left it unattended - since opening this morning. _Blink, blink._ Courtney yawned as her eyes grew heavy, but she resisted the urge to take a nap where she stood. Just another hour, and she could do it without consequences and in an actual bed. _Blink…_ The red indicator light on the security camera didn't flicker back on. Courtney stared at it for a minute before carefully edging out from behind the counter. It was probably her job to try to fix it?

She didn't notice the girl until she bumped into her; she supposed that was what the counter position, at the back of the floor with all possible lines of sight, was for. Hurriedly, Courtney began the spiel. "Uh, Goldfinch Jewelers, all settings made on site, except the ones we buy from Signet, shit I wasn't supposed to say that, shit I'm not supposed to swear, 1 year gatisfaction saruntee, but we don' embezzle canes though" - Courtney gestured to the very thick aluminum cane in the girl's hand, and her eyes widened above her mask (which, Courtney sympathized, she had awful allergies too in spring) - "or other outside stuff. How'd you get in but not ring the bell? I always set it off when I do opening shif-" The girl swung her cane; Courtney tried to move back, but it was like moving in slow motion through honey; it connected squarely with her temple, and Courtney crumpled to the floor of the shop.

"All cameras and alarms off, Tom?" Penny said as she wiped the blood from the end of her baseball bat.

"Yeah," Tom said from the workshop, sweeping handfuls of diamonds and rubies and sapphires into velvet bags. "Why were you holding a conversation with the shop girl? We need to keep a low profile!"

"I didn't mean to!" Penny protested. "The Calming Draught wasn't totally effective this time - might be getting old, or she might have been resistant to it for some reason. Besides, we can set this one to look like a normal robbery." Tom rolled his eyes.

"You just want to smash some cases, don't you," he said. Penny shrugged.

"The front has some cute earrings. _And_ some nice watches," she said. Tom grinned.

"Let's do it." Five minutes of smashed glass later, the incriminating evidence was in a sports duffel and Tom and Penny (filtration masks removed) were walking back towards the train station. Just as they reached it, a snowy owl fluttered down onto Tom's shoulder.

"Hey, Blizzard," Tom said. "How's Harry doing?" The owl hooted noncommittally. Penny stashed the pot of bulbadox powder into the duffel and scanned the letter. Her eyes widened.

"If you can hang out at St. S's for a few days, Blizzard, we can get in a Diagon trip and figure something out," Penny said. "There were some things in the stationery shop that might work, but I don't know if they'd be secure or work for muggles." Blizzard hooted once and took off.

"Penny, what-" Penny shoved the letter under his nose, and his eyes widened, too. "You think it's really him?"

"I do. Come on, we have work to do."

 **.oOo.**

Otto had work to do - their first test in Intro to Mad Science was tomorrow, and they were meant to be studying - but, since they were "studying" without a teacher in sight for once, he also had a chance to talk to Laura without being overheard. All four of them hunched over a table in one corner of Block Six, study materials and homework scattered around them as an alibi, but very little work was getting done.

"So… Harry's famous?" Otto asked.

"Yeah," Laura said as she worked on a math problem. "He killed Voldemort - our last big dark lord - Shelby, stop laughing at the stupid name, he killed my Dad's favorite cousins and half my Mum's friends and a bunch of other people - as a baby… ten years come Halloween. He supposedly survived a Killing Curse doing it, too." She typed a few numbers into her calculator, made a face, erased her answer, and started checking her work..

 _"How?"_ Otto asked. Laura shrugged.

"No one knows," she said. She turned a negative sign to a plus, wrote down a new answer, checked it, and nodded. "There are theories - mum brings some of the quackier books back from Diagon to laugh at sometimes, I liked the one where he was secretly a half-dragon - but he just disappeared after the Ending, so none of them have ever been substantiated. Mum thinks that it was actually something one of his parents did; his mum was training to be an Unspeakable - sort of like a magic researcher, but they work for the government? - and his dad was an Auror - wizard police - so if there was a way to beat a Killing Curse they'd've known it."

"What's this Diagon?" Wing asked.

"Wait, Nigel's coming," Shelby said. "Also, does this circuit make sense?" Otto peered over her shoulder.

"You forgot to calculate resistance," he said.

"I always forget that," she groaned. "I think we're clear now."

"Diagon Alley's the main magical shopping street - though Mum and Dad use it to refer to the whole magical district in London," Laura said. "She goes there sometimes for her job. I went once; it's super crazy. Lots of bright colors and stuff flying. Lots of cool stuff there, too, but you have to sort through the muck. Has anyone done number fourteen on the Financial Maths homework?"

 **.oOo.**

The Leaky Cauldron was already packed by 10 a.m. In the bustle, no one noticed the very average-looking, brown-haired girl slip through the front door with a balding Ministry official on his way to inspect the pet shop (picking his pocket as she went - no use giving up an old habit if she wasn't getting caught at it), dawdling by the back door, and going through the arch to Diagon Alley with a very shabby, scarred man who all the animals shied away from (who she promptly dumped half the pickpocketed change onto, because he looked like he needed it and Mrs. McReedy was always telling them to do good). It wasn't an unusual pattern - plenty of squibs followed it for propriety's sake - and Penny Richards was counting on that unspoken code to get to her destination without anyone noticing her age.

Once she entered the alley, Penny turned left and headed about halfway down the alley. Scribbulus Writing Instruments was a small shopfront, half-hidden behind Flourish and Blotts, with bright blue door and a neat display of osprey quills and leather-bound diaries in its window. The clerk was a twentysomething wizard who barely blinked when Penny walked in, and for a second, she considered just robbing the joint. _No. You need information a much as a solution, and you don't know how magical alarm systems work._ Penny quickly went through the racks of quills and diaries _(send letters without an owl!_ one rack bragged, and Penny snagged three) and letterboxes _(one simple charm and never wonder about letter theft,_ and Penny would've grabbed one of those too if Otto and Tom and her weren't all nonmagical) before walking up to the counter. The clerk startled and straightened.

"How may I help you?" he said.

"Err, I was looking at these diaries," Penny put them on the counter. "The stand said they could allow me to communicate with my friends without an owl, but I was wondering how secure they were?"

"Oh, the paired diaries," the clerk said. "Once we link them up, the only people who can read the contents are whoever's got their name written on the inside cover."

"That's really reassuring," Penny said, "but I was hoping to use them with my… cousin, and she's a squib. Would they still work?" The clerk shrugged.

"The magic's in the diary, not from the user," he said. "Might need blood to tie it to the user, though. They're fourteen sickles each. You want to link all three?" Penny nodded and handed over her money. The clerk waved his wand in a clockwise loop over the diaries and tapped the cover of each before handing them to Penny. "Have a nice day, and keep Sribbulus in mind for all your future scribbling needs!"

 **.oOo.**

Harry wasn't expecting Blizzard to come back a bit over a day after he sent her to Penny, at breakfast on Saturday morning. She was carrying two thick diaries, bound in green leather, and a note from Penny.

 _Harry,_

 _The two diaries are linked; whatever's written in one should show up in the other. (Tom and I have a third.) You need to write your name in the inside cover to see what's written in it; Otto will need to use blood. One's for you, the other's for him._

 _Penny_

Harry quickly shoved the diaries into his bag and went to the library. There must be some kind of protection charms in there; if he could key one of those to Otto somehow, then the diary would get to him (hopefully), and they'd be in business. Once he got into the (mostly deserted - classes had been cancelled for the past two days as teachers scrambled to get a new potions lab up and running) library, he turned right, towards the charms section, and started looking towards the back of the section, where the higher-level books were shelved.

 _Why couldn't wizards use the Dewey Decimal System?_ Harry wondered. _Subject and level is great if you're studying everything, I guess, but it'd be nice to have something a bit more precise._ Finally, halfway down the second bookcase he checked, he saw it: a massive, cherry red volume titled _Property Protection Charms: a Dictionary and Direction Guide._ Harry grabbed it off the shelf with a slight grunt - it easily weighed ten pounds - and went over to one of the study tables. He scanned the table of contents

 _Homes and Land_ \- no - _Rented Property and Removable Wards_ \- no - _Letters and Diaries_ \- could be useful, but no - _Pets and People_ \- no and what the fuck, respectively - _Small Items_ \- yes! Harry leafed to page 536 and started scanning for a charm he could place on the diary that would prevent anyone but Otto from opening it. _Temporary touch-me-not charms are much simpler to establish than most boundary wards. However, to add a second person to the charm requires something of that person - blood, their magical signature, or even just their mark. A two-person touch-me-not charm will not succeed unless both parties are included._ Harry fretted. This would be so much _easier_ if Otto was still with them, but he wasn't, and it's not like they kept samples of his blood around just in case. Unless… _even just their mark_. Mark was an old work for signature, right? That could work.

 _Penny, I need Otto's note, Harry scribbled into his diary._ I'll send Blizzard back tonight for it. The charm wasn't that hard, so if everything came together, he should be back in contact with Otto by Halloween.

This could work. This could really work. Everything was coming together, and this could really work.

 **.oOo.**

"Blizzard, it's just one last time," Harry pleaded. The owl gazed back impassively. "It's for a good cause!" One indignant hoot. "They're not going to _actually_ shoot you." If owls had eyebrows to raise, she would have raised them. "Please?" Blizzard flew a few feet up to a different perch in the Owlery. "I could just get the barn owl to take it." A long, slow hoot that sounded suspiciously like _"fiiiineee"_ , and Blizzard stuck out her leg. "This is for Otto, but if things get rough, it doesn't need to actually get into his hands, okay? Just in his general vicinity." Blizzard hooted and took off.

* * *

 **Liked it? Hated it? Review and let me know!**

 **Notes:**

 **Signet is the super-massive parent company of a bunch of jewelry retailers, three of which (Ernest Jones, H. Samuel, and Leslie Davies) are UK-based.**

 **Courtney is a bit drugged by the Calming Draught gas, and probably would've passed out eventually; this shows mainly through her speech. Her spiel was meant to be "Goldfinch Jewelers, all settings made on site, 1 year _satisfaction guarantee_ , but we don't _bedazzle_ canes or other outside stuff." Penny and Tom are wearing masks to protect from the gas; this also has the effect of obscuring their faces.**


	9. We Only Part

Chapter 9: We Only Part (to Meet Again)

"We Only Part to Meet Again" - John Gay

* * *

Nero was in his office, preparing H.I.V.E.'s reports for the fall quarter. The covers of their recently graduated class were starting to be tested, and new documents needed to be generated in order to support them; students' reports needed to be approved and sent out to families and sponsors alike (which, honestly, there were a limited number of diplomatic ways to say "the Politics and Financial stream is full of sociopaths, but in a good way", and the Contessa seemed to find new ones every year), and for legacies letters home needed to be scanned and censored as well; and the quarterly report to G.L.O.V.E. needed to be written. Which was what he was currently avoiding doing. There was no good way to put an escaped lab experiment and a possible location breach, even if they were still below par for deaths for the year. (He had mandated Pike get preauthorization for his experiments after the Giant Ferret Incident last spring, and it's worked wonders for their casualty rates. Now, if he can just restrict access to the superlaser lab…)

"Sir?" One of the guards - Jones, who graduated the Henchman course two years ago with a GPA two hundreths of a point from academic probation but the best marksmanship scores since H.I.V.E. was still headquartered in Vegas - poked his head into Nero's office. "The bird's back."

"So shoot it."

"We tried. I think I hit its wing. It flew off but dropped a package."

"So bring it here!"

"We tried, but I couldn't touch it." Nero stared at Jones.

"Couldn't touch it _how?"_ If this was another sticky note with "don't pick me up" written on it, he swore to God…

"I tried - I really did! - but as soon as my hand was on it…" Jones hung his head miserably and showed Nero the palm of his hand. It was bright red and irritated, and there were blisters on the fingers.

"I'll fetch salad tongs from the mess. Follow me, Jones."

 **.oOo.**

On Thursday morning, Harry followed Prefect Clearwater (who he couldn't think of as Penny) down a hallway he'd never used before. Classroom Three, she explained, had been one of the original classrooms built at Hogwarts but had fallen into disfavor as the castle expanded, and was now mostly used for O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. testing; however, since the potions lab was still off-limits, it was now the new Potions classroom.

 _It's certainly a lot cheerier than the old one,_ Harry thought as he entered. It reminded him of the science lab of his primary school: long black tables dotted with stools, a blackboard in front, safety posters on the otherwise bare walls, and windows (how were there windows? there weren't any windows in the corridor) letting in some rare autumn sun. The woman standing next to the blackboard, with her dark brown hair tied back from her face, even looked like his science teacher a bit, though she was wearing dark robes instead of a white lab coat.

"Hello, class," the woman said. Several people mumbled "hello" back. "My name is Professor Mitchell," she tapped the board with her wand, and the chalk wrote her name in neat, sans serif typeface (and that was cool, Harry assumed a spell like that would use your handwriting), "and I will be your potions teacher for the rest of the year. Some information about me: I am a Potions Mistress Emeritus, like your former professor, and like him when he started here, I do not have teaching experience, so bear with me. Most of my professional work pertains to the theoretical side of potionmaking, particularly how the magic of potions ingredients interact with each other and with the end user. Now, please take out some note-taking materials and put your wands away - I saw that, kid, five points from Ravenclaw - because we need to have a lecture on safety.

"Safety is the most important tool in any brewer's cupboard. This class if probably the most dangerous you'll take until at least third year, and that's because of the inherent hazards of the art. Can anyone name one danger in this classroom?" Harry cautiously raised his hand. "Ravenclaw with the big glasses, name and one hazard."

"Harry Potter and fire," Harry said, and Mitchell grinned.

"That's right, Mister Potter. Fire is a danger for a few reasons. First, obviously, you can set stuff on fire that you don't want burned; that's why you're supposed to tie your hair back and not wear super loose clothing when you brew. You also have to worry about what the fire's consuming, especially if it's a gas flame or if you're brewing in a small space, but that's not important here. Another major concern is that the temperature of fire can be difficult to manage, and you can't guess temperature of many items based on sight alone when heated. Can anyone guess what temperature my nice, lovely, professional-grade brass cauldron is?" One of the Hufflepuffs, a blond boy who had gotten a care package at breakfast that morning, tentatively raised his hand. "You - name and answer?"

"Err, Justin Finch-Fletchley - it's room-temperature?" Justin squeaked. Mitchell's grin grew. She took a flask of water from beside her and poured it in; it hissed and evaporated.

"The same would've happened if I'd heated the flask, too, by the way," Mitchell said. "That's why you should always hesitate for a second before grabbing something that's been near a heat source for a while; one of my bosses got nasty burns trying to lift a hot cauldron. Any other dangers? You?"

"Susan Bones, and the ingredients," Susan said.

"Nice one. The ingredients you work with, even on a first year level, have the potential to kill you if not handled properly. About half of them, in their natural state, are toxic in quantities found in a normal potions kit; if I catch anyone in this class eating or drinking without explicit permission, it's an automatic zero for the day. A couple unrestricted ingredients are exceedingly volatile, to the point that putting them into some highly reactive potions, like the cure for boils, at the wrong moment can cause major explosions." Harry could have sworn her eyes were on him at that moment; he kept his features neutral and his eyes on his notes. "Others emit noxious smoke, so you need extra ventilation charms when using them, like a muggle fume hood."

"What's a fume hood?"

"What's your name?"

"Michael Corner, son of Malcolm." Harry could've sworn Mitchell muttered _of course you are_ under her breath.

"It's like adding an extra ventilation or air-cleaning charm to a special area of your lab. Any other suggestions for dangers?" The room was silent. "Then we move onto procedures. I know you have flying today, but do try to pay attention, because I _will_ test you on this…"

 **.oOo.**

As he looked at their Financial Maths 1 study guide (which was so thick it could be a textbook in its own right), Otto groaned. He was about to be tested on this, and he still felt like he was pushing numbers around the paper in hope of getting the answer on the board. He needed to train for their Stealth and Evasion practical tomorrow, but he also needed to somehow learn this, and Franz was busy doing remedial Tactical Ed work tonight, which meant he and Laura and Wing and Shelby would have to stumble their way through it together, and that was part of how they'd gotten into this mess in the first place…

He almost didn't see Nero approaching him with a scowl. Great. Now he was in trouble for a _tiny_ bit of homework racketeering. (Though why was Nero carrying a box for that…?) When he reached Otto, Nero slammed the box down onto the table.

"You win, Malpense," Nero gritted out through clenched teeth.

"I do?"

"Yes. You do." With that, he stormed off. With no small amount of trepidation, Otto opened the box to see a black leather diary and a note written in a code he had made up with Tom and Penny.

 _Otto,_

 _Comms open. Write your name on the inside of the diary to see messages inside._

 _Harry_

Otto grinned and slipped the book into his bag. Maybe he had won after all. Now he just had to win against his math test.

 **.oOo.**

Harry was wondering if he could battle and win against a dragon rather than ride one of the rickety old brooms lined up on the Quidditch field. Sure, flying sounded fun, but on one of _those_ things… Madam Hooch, a hawklike woman with short gray hair, glared at the assembled students.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she asked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on now, hurry up." As Harry stared down at his broom and hoped that cracked tail twigs weren't a bad omen (if they were, he was _screwed),_ he heard a rustling sound to his left. He turned his head; Michael was shoving something into his pocket, and one of the Hufflepuff's (Egbert's? Edgar's? Something with an E) bags was slightly open.

Before he could really think about it, Madam Hooch was back to giving instructions. "Stick out your wand hand over your broom and say, 'Up!'"

"UP!" Harry shouted, and the broom jumped into his hand. With force. Enough force to knock it - and the rest of Harry - back about a foot. Most of the rest of the class was less successful; it took Michael two tries to get the broom to come to his hand, and E-whoever's just rolled around on the flood for a solid five minutes until he screamed the command and it hit him in the forehead. It was then that he noticed his open bag.

"Corner, why were you looking through my bag?" he shouted.

"I wasn't looking though your bag, Ernie!" Michael retorted.

"Well then, why's it open?" Ernie noticed Michael's bulging pocket. "You took my Transfiguration essay! The one you were trying to copy all last week!" Harry had no clue what the fuck they were talking about - he tried to stay away from Michael's pompousness and cloud of drama as much as possible - but he had been complaining about their _maybe_ three hours' worth Transfiguration homework - at truly obnoxious length - for days, and Harry wouldn't put stealing someone else's and replacing the name on top (he doubted Michael had the work ethic to even rewrite the essay in his own hand) above him.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"It's missing, and your pocket's full! Did too!"

"STUDENTS!" Madam Hooch shouted. "When I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two-" She blew the whistle, and Harry kicked off. The broom buzzed slightly beneath him as he rose about five feet into the air. A cool morning breeze swept through his hair; as the sun shone warmly in his face, and Harry couldn't fight back a smile; it had been years since he felt so alive, so _free-_

Ernie and Michael were still arguing, but now they were doing it in the air. White trying to shove each other to the ground. Madam Hooch was currently distracted by Justin, whose broom was rapidly rocketing upwards despite his best attempts to guide it down, and so didn't notice when Justin shoved Ernie off his broom and streaked off towards the castle, a piece of parchment - probably the essay? - in his hand.

"Hey, give it back!" Ernie yelled as he tried to remount his broom, which was hovering about four feet in the air. Went after Michael; even if he didn't really know Ernie, Justin was enough of a dick without getting away with something like this.

"Corner, stop being a dick!" Harry yelled as he caught up to Michael.

"Why do you care?" Michael asked as he turned around to face Harry and awkwardly swung a fist at him. "It's not even your paper!" Madam Hooch was blowing her whistle somewhere in the distance, but Harry wasn't backing down.

"It could be mine next week," Harry said, "and you're still a right fucking arsehole regardless of whose stuff it is!" Michael tried to shove him again - they must be twenty feet off the ground by now, and his broom's gentle buzzing was turning into furious vibrations - Harry took the opportunity to snag the letter from Michael's other hand and the vibrations abruptly stopped, and so did the broom's flight.

He was falling, falling quickly - shit, he didn't know any spells to fix this - this was going to be ugly - five feet from the ground, the broom started working again, and Harry desperately pulled out of the inadvertent steep dive he had fallen into during his rapid descent. Just as his feet touched the ground with a bit too much excess velocity to be called a "landing", Madam Hooch reached them.

"You two!" she roared. "What were you thinking? Flitwick's office, now!" Harry winced; getting taken to their Head of House could mean nothing good.

 **.oOo.**

"Hmm." Flitwick looked over his desk at Harry, who fidgeted. "So you were merely trying to retrieve Mister MacMillan's Transfiguration essay?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said.

"And then your broom stalled?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said. "It was terrifying."

"And the fantastic dive at the end?"

"I was mostly trying to not end up a smear on the grass, sir." Flitwick nodded and waved his wand; a silvery toad leaped out of the end of his wand.

"Can you go fetch Abercrombie, please? I would like to speak to him." The toad gave out a musical ribbit and swooshed out of the room. "No, Mister Potter, please stay. This concerns you as well." After a minute, a burly blonde seventh year girl entered the room. "Mister Potter, may I introduce Elaine Abercrombie, Hogwarts' best Quidditch Captain? And Miss Abercrombie, the Harry Potter?" Abercrombie nodded her head.

"What's this about, Professor?" she asked.

"You mentioned needing a seeker?"

"We sort of have it handled, now? Cho Chang's willing to take the role, and I think she'll be great at it, and we have Roger Davies, Rob Hilliard, and Sammy Locke as Chasers, but Chang wants to cross-train as Chaser, and Hilliard is nervous about doing Quidditch _and_ Head Boy _and_ N.E.W.T.s… why?" Flitwick beamed.

"Mister Potter just completed a rapid deceleration dive on a school broom!" Abercrombie's eyes widened.

"Wow, okay, cool, but he's a firstie? Do you think Dumbledore will exempt him?" Flitwick nodded. "I'll talk to Hilliard and Chang, and if they agree, then we can try him as a seeker, sure, if he wants to be. You do want to be a seeker, right, Potter?"

"Not on that broom," Harry said. Abercrombie laughed.

"No, not a school broom. I've got an old Cleansweep Six you can borrow until we can get permission for you to bring your own but there's no way you should play Quidditch on one of those floor-scrapers."

 **.oOo.**

 _Harry, are you there?_

 _Otto? Yeah, I'm here. Are you okay?_

 _A bit stressed, but otherwise fine. What happened to you? I know we've been calling it magic for a while, but actual wizards?_

 _Apparently. I'm not the one who got literally kidnapped._

 _Fair point. It's working out though; that's how I met Laura. Her mom's a witch, apparently._

 _Well, statistically, you'd meet someone like her eventually. Are you really safe?_

 _Yes. Very. Nothing can reach me here. I've got to get back to homework._

 _Ugh, me too. Talk to you another time._

* * *

 **Liked it? Hated it? Review and let me know!**


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